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THE 

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FROM ANCIENT HISTORIANS AND 
AUTHENTIC DOCUMENTS. 

BY 
JOSEPH RITSON, ESQ. 



Ne tut meneoigne, ne tut veir, 

Ne tut folie, ne tut saver : 

Tant ont li contur cont£, 

E li fablur tunt fable, 

Pur lur contes enbelir, 

Ke tuz les funt a fables tener. 

Le Brut de maistre Wace. 

No more our long-lost Arthur we bewail. 

Gray. 



LONDON 






PRINTED FOR PAYNE AND FOSS, PALL-MALL ; 

AND HARDING, TRIPHOOK, AND LEPARD, 

FINSBURY SQUARE J 

HY WILLIAM NICOL, CLEVELAND-ROW, ST. JAMES'S. 

1825. 



ADVERTISEMENT. 

The curious work now offered to the world 
was prepared for the press by Mr. Ritson, with 
a view to immediate publication, a short time 
before his death; and the character of the 
writer is sufficiently established to justify the 
editors hope of its favorable reception. 

The difficulty of the subject may be partly 
estimated from doubts having been actually 
entertained by the author, during his early 
researches, as to the identity of his hero, and 
fears lest the real Arthur might not, after all, 
be found : 

" So many of his shadows ' had he ' met, 
And not the very king." 

It is proper to add that the orthography 
latterly adopted by Mr. Ritson, however ex- 
cellent, has not, on account of its singularity, 
been preserved. 

Stockton upon Tees, 
May 2, 1825. 



CONTENTS. 

Preface, - - - p. i. 

v The Life of King Arthur, - - 3 

Appendix. 

No. I. Extracts from the lives of Welsh 
saints, - - 143 

No. II. The answer of the abbot of Ban- 
gor to Augustine, the monk, word 
for word, in Welsh and English, 
155 
No. III. British and Welsh saints, 157 

No. IV. Welsh saints, - - 160 

No. V. Cornish saints, - 164 

No. VI. Breton saints, - - lfl 



PREFACE. 



No character, eminent in ancient history, has 
ever been treated with more extravagance, men- 
dacity and injustice, than the renowned Arthur, 
the illustrious monarch and valiant commander 
of the Britons. Extolled by some, as greater in 
power, more victorious in war, more abundant 
in dominion, more extensive in fame, than either 
the Roman Julius or the Grecian Alexander ; his 
very existence has, by others, been, positively 
and absolutely, denied. In the year 1138, being 
the third of king Stephen, appeared an elaborate 
work, in a classical style, and containing two 
short pieces of elegiac poetry, of singular elegance 
for that age,* intitled " Historia Britonum, or 

* Diva potens nemarum , terror sylvestribus api-is ; 

Cui licet amfractus ire per aethereos, 
Infernasque domos ; ter restrict jura resolve, 

Et die quas terras nos habit are velis ? 
Die certam sedem qua te venerabor in aevum, 

Qua tibi virgineis temvla dicabo choris?" 
This elegy, thus Englished by Pope : 

" Goddess of woods, tremendous in the chace 

To mountain boars and all the savage race ! 



ii PREFACE. 

regum Britanniae,"f in which this celebrated so- 
vereign, as, at least, in consequence thereof he 

Wide o'er th' aethereal walks extends thy sway, 

And o'er th' infernal mansions void of day ! 

On thy third realm look down ! unfold our fate, 

And say what region is our destin'd seat ? 

Where shall we next thy lasting temples raise? 

And choirs of virgins celebrate thy praise ? 
was, according to the author in question, the address ot 
Brutus to the oracular statue of Diana, in the island of Leo- 
gecia, which he said nine times, himself holding, before the 
altar of the goddess, the vase of the sacrifice, full of wine and 
the blood of a white hart ; having encircled the altar four times ; 
and poured the wine into the fire ; and laid down upon the 
hart-skin, he, at length, slept. About the third hour of the 
night, it seemed to him that the goddess stood before himself, 
and in this manner bespoke him : 

" Brute, sub occasum solis, trans Gallica regna, 
Insula in oceano est, undique clausa man; 

Insula in oceano est, habitata gigatitibus olim, 
Nunc deserta quidem ; gentibus apta tuis. 

Hancpete, namque tibi sedes erit Me perennis : 
Sicjiet natis altera Troja tuis. 

Sic de prole tua reges nascentur ; et ipsis 
Totius terrae subditus orbis erit :" 

Englished by the same poet (see Milton's Poems, by Warton, 
1791, P. 364): 

" Brutus, there lies beyond the Gallic bounds 
An island which the western sea surrounds, 
By giants once possess'd ; now few remain 
To bar thy entrance, or obstruct thy reign, 



PREFACE. iii 

became, is represented as a hero of such, magni- 
tude, that, having succeeded Uther Pendragon, 

To reach that happy shore thy sails employ : 
There fate decrees to raise a second Troy, 
And found an empire in thy royal line, 
Which time shall ne'er destroy nor bounds confine." 
This island, of course, was Britain, then called Albion, at 
which he arrived in good time, and which was inhabited by 
no one, except a few giants. (B. 1, C. 11, 16.) 

Whether these two elegies were composed by Geoffrey of 
Monmouth may be, reasonably, doubted. Henry, arch-deacon 
of Huntingdon, appears to have been the best elegiac poet of 
that age. 

t The title varies in the different manuscripts and printed 
copies. There are three editions, in Latin, under these titles : 
" Britannie utriusque regum et principum origo et gesta in- 
signia ab Galfrido Monemutensi ex antiquissimis Britanni ser- 
monis monumentis in Latinum sermonem traducta et ub [Johanne 
Badid] Ascensio cura et impendio magistri Luonis Cavellati in 
lacem ed'tta. [Parisiis, MDVIII : quarto] : the second edition 
[MDXVII], by the same printer, differs very little, and in no- 
thing of consequence, from the former : the third: " Galfredi 
Mtmumetensis historic regum Britannia'' apud " Rerum Bii- 
timnicarum [llieronimo Commelino edito]: Lugduni, c I o. Io. 
Lxxxvn: folio. Beside the English version by Aaron 
Thompson, in 1718, 8vo : and it is a very common manu- 
script. It is sometimes, called Liber Bruti ; and the anony- 
mous author of The Chronicle of Jervaux (falsely attributed to 
John Bromton, abbot of that monastery, in the time of Henry 
the sixth) calls it (in Latin) not only " The history of the 
Britons," or, " The British book ;" but, likewise, " The book 
of the gests [or actions] of the Britons, vulgarly call'd " Le 
Brut" (see Co. 725,1153). 



iv PREFACE. 

his father, in the kingdom of Britain, he made a 
sudden assault upon the Saxons, and put them to 
flight ; that Hoel, his nephew, king of the Ar- 
morican Britons, sent him fifteen thousand men ; 
that he made the Saxons his tributaries ; that he 
granted a pardon to the Scots and Picts ; that he 
honoured Augusel with the scepter of the Scots, 
Urien with that of Murray, and Lot with the 
consulship or dukedom of Loudonesia or Lothian ; 
that he added to his government Ireland, Iceland, 
Gothland and the Orkneys ; that he subdued 
Norway, Dacia, or Denmark, Aquitain and Gaul, 
now France j that he held his grand coronation- 
feast at the city of Legions or Caerleon, in Gla- 
morganshire, to which came the kings of Albany 
or Scotland, Murray, Venedotia or North- Wales, 
Demetia or South-Wales and Cornwall ; the 
archbishops of London, York and Caerleon ; the 
consuls, dukes, or earls, of the principal cities ; 
all of whom are enumerated by the most barba- 
rous names 5 the kings of Ireland, Iceland, Goth- 
land, the Orkneys, Norway, the Dacians or Danes 
and the Ruteni; the consul (or earl) of Bulonia ,- 
the Duke of Normandy, his butler ; the duke of 
Andegavia or Anjou, his sewer ; the twelve peers 
of France ;* the Duke of the Armorican Britons, 

* The mention of these twelve peers is a strong proof that 
the author of the British History had read the no less fabulous 
life of Charlemagne, by a Pseudo-Tnrpin, which also sug- 



PREFACE. v 

with his nobility, who walked with so great an 
equipage of ornaments, mules and horses, as was 
difficult to describe ; that, beside these, no prince 
of any price remained on this side of Spain, who 
came not at that proclamation : Nor was it won- 
derful : for, the munificence of Arthur being 
divulged through the whole world, had allured 
every one into the love of him : that, upon this 
occasion, he received a letter from Lucius Tiberius, 
general of the Romans (but totally unknown to 
the Roman historians), demanding justice for 
tribute withheld, and injuries done ; and threat- 
ening war on his refusal ; which is inserted at 
length, with the deliberative speeches and argu- 
ments of his privy-council, pro and con.} that 
they unanimously agreed upon a war with the 
Romans ; that Lucius Tiberius, called together 
the eastern kings against the Britons ; that Ar- 
thur killed a Spanish giant of monstrous size j 
that the Romans attacked the Britons with very 
great force, but were put to flight by them 5 that, 



gested to him a name for Arthur's sword. This romance is 
conjectured, by the French antiquaries, to be of the eleventh 
century; and was originally printed, in Latin, in " Germani- 
carum quatuor celebriores vetustioresque chronographi, <|c 
Francofurti, a Simone Schardio, 1566, folio ; a licentious ver- 
sion, however, in French, having been already published by 
Robert Gaguin, in 1525, 4to. 



vi PREFACE. 

in a prodigious battle, for numbers and slaughter, 
Lucius Tiberius was killed, and the Britons ob- 
tained the victory j that part of the Romans fled 
and the rest, of their own accord, surrendered 
themselves for slaves ! ! ! Events never heard 
of before this miraculous history.* 

This wonderful book was ushered into the 
world by Geoffrey of Monmouth, a Welshman, 
and, in process of time, that is, in the year, 1151, 
bishop of Saint-Asaph, though, by no means, 
the only prelate who has owed his advancement 



* The Danes, likewise, are introduced, long before that 
people were known in Britain, their first irruption being in 786, 
144 years after the supposed death of Arthur. Gormund, 
king of the Africans is, doubtless, Gutkrun or Godrun, vulgarly 
called Gormund, king of the Banes, who, having been defeated 
and made prisoner by king Alfred, was, at his instance, bap- 
tized, in 878; and even " the forest of Canute," who died in 
1036, is mentioned in Merlin's Prophecies, about 430 : accu- 
rate chronology ! Moreover, in the forged laws of Edward the 
confessor, it is said " that the law of /W/i-mote was Mounded' by 
Arthur [a British prince to make Saxon laws], who was for- 
merly the most f.imous king of the Britons and so consolidated 
and confederated the whole kingdom of Britain for ever in 
one. By the authority of this law, the aforesaid Arthur 
expelled the Saracens, and enemies from the kingdom." 
{LL. Anglo-Sax. p. 204.) Edward, who made the law, was 
born after 1002 and Arthur, who is said to have died in 542, 
availed himself of " the authority of this law" made aft ( 
1042. 



PREFACE. vii 

to publications of a similar nature j* who, in his 
prefatory chapter, being a sort of epistle dedica- 
tory to Robert earl of Gloucester, the natural 
son of king Henry the first, who died in 1146, 
in which, also, he notices that monarch, whose 
death had happened in 1135, says, " When, re- 
volving many things with myself and oftener con- 
cerning many things in my mind, I fell into the 
history of the kings of Britain, I imputed it into 
a wonder, that within the mention which Gildas 
and Bede had made of them in a creditable trea- 
tise, I could find nothing of the kings who had 
inhabited Britain before the incarnation of Christ : 
nor, even, of Arthur and the many others who 
succeeded after the incarnation : when both their 
actions were worthy of the praise of eternity, and, 
by many people, as if inscribed, pleasantly and by 
heart, were reported. To me, thinking these 
things and of such like, many times, Walter 



* Girald Barry, another Welshman, commonly called Gi- 
raldus Cambrensis, and, by Leland and Camden, for whatever 
reason, Silvester Giraldus, a voluminous writer, was elevated, 
for the like cause, to the see of Saint David, in 1214 ; as was, 
likewise, John Bale, of equal notoriety, to the see of Ossory, 
in 1552 and, in later times, according to honest Tom Hearne, 
" the reverend and learned doctor White Kennett, dean [and, 
afterward, Bishop] of Peterborough, whosejidelity and candour 
and veracity," he says, are very conspicuous and well known to 
the world" (Preface to the Vth volume of Leland's Itinerary.') 



iv PREFACE. 

his father, in the kingdom of Britain, he made a 
sudden assault upon the Saxons, and put them to 
flight ; that Hoel, his nephew, king of the Ar- 
morican Britons, sent him fifteen thousand men ; 
that he made the Saxons his tributaries 5 that he 
granted a pardon to the Scots and Picts 3 that he 
honoured Augusel with the scepter of the Scots, 
Urien with that of Murray, and Lot with the 
consulship or dukedom of Loudonesia or Lothian ; 
that he added to his government Ireland, Iceland, 
Gothland and the Orkneys ; that he subdued 
Norway, Dacla, or Denmark, Aquitain and Gaul, 
now France ; that he held his grand coronation- 
feast at the city of Legions or Caerleon, in Gla- 
morganshire, to which came the kings of Albany 
or Scotland, Murray, Venedotia or North- Wales, 
Demetia or South-Wales and Cornwall ; the 
archbishops of London, York and Caerleon ; the 
consuls, dukes, or earls, of the principal cities ; 
all of whom are enumerated by the most barba- 
rous names ; the kings of Ireland, Iceland, Goth- 
land, the Orkneys, Norway, the Dacians or Danes 
and the Ruteni; the consul (or earl) of Bulonia ,- 
the Duke of Normandy, his butler ; the duke of 
Andegavia or Anjou, his sewer j the twelve peers 
of France ;* the Duke of the Armorican Britons, 

* The mention of these twelve peers is a strong proof that 
the author of the British History had read the no less fabulous 
life of Charlemagne, by a Pseiulo-Turpin, vvhicb also sug- 



PREFACE. v 

with his nobility, who walked with so great an 
equipage of ornaments, mules and horses, as was 
difficult to describe j that, beside these, no prince 
of any price remained on this side of Spain, who 
came not at that proclamation : Nor was it won- 
derful : for, the munificence of Arthur being 
divulged through the whole world, had allured 
every one into the love of him : that, upon this 
occasion, he received a letter from Lucius Tiberius, 
general of the Romans (but totally unknown to 
the Roman historians), demanding justice for 
tribute withheld, and injuries done -, and threat- 
ening war on his refusal ; which is inserted at 
length, with the deliberative speeches and argu- 
ments of his privy- council, pro and con.; that 
they unanimously agreed upon a war with the 
Romans ; that Lucius Tiberius, called together 
the eastern kings against the Britons ; that Ar- 
thur killed a Spanish giant of monstrous size ; 
that the Romans attacked the Britons with very 
great force, but were put to flight by them 5 that, 



gested to him a name for Arthurs sword. This romance is 
conjectured, by the French antiquaries, to be of the eleventh 
century ; and was originally printed, in Latin, in " Germani- 
carum quatuor celebriores vetustioresque chronographi, <|c 
Francofurti, a Simone Schardio, 1566, folio ; a licentious ver- 
sion, however, in French, having been already published by 
Robert Gaguin, in 1525, 4to. 



vi PREFACE. 

in a prodigious battle, for numbers and slaughter, 
Lucius Tiberius was killed, and the Britons ob- 
tained the victory; that part of the Romans fled 
and the rest, of their own accord, surrendered 
themselves for slaves ! ! ! Events never heard 
of before this miraculous history.* 

This wonderful book was ushered into the 
world by Geoffrey of Monmouth, a Welshman, 
and, in process of time, that is, in the year, 1151, 
bishop of Saint-Asaph, though, by no means, 
the only prelate who has owed his advancement 



* The Danes, likewise, are introduced, long before that 
people were known in Britain, their first irruption being in 786, 
144 years after the supposed death of Arthur. Gormund, 
king of the Africans is, doubtless, Gutluun or Godrun, vulgarly 
called Gormund, king of the Danes, who, having been defeated 
and made prisoner by king Alfred, was, at his instance, bap- 
tized, in 878; and even " the forest of Canute," who died in 
1036, is mentioned in Merlin's Prophecies, about 430 : accu- 
rate chronology ! Moreover, in the forged laws of Edward the 
confessor, it is said " that the law of /i>He-mote was ' founded' by 
Arthur [a British prince to make Saxon laws], who was for- 
merly the most f.ttnous king of the Britons and so consolidated 
and confederated the whole kingdom of Britain for ever in 
one. By the authority of this law, the aforesaid Am huh 
expelled the Saracens, and enemies from the kingdom." 
(LL. Anglo-Sax. p. 204.) Edward, who made die law, was 
born after 100'J and Arthur, who is said to have died in 542, 
availed himself of " the authority of this law" made after 
1042, 



PREFACE. vii 

to publications of a similar nature ;* who, in his 
prefatory chapter, being a sort of epistle dedica- 
tory to Robert earl of Gloucester, the natural 
son of king Henry the first, who died in 1146, 
in which, also, he notices that monarch, whose 
death had happened in 1135, says, " When, re- 
volving many things with myself and oftener con- 
cerning many things in my mind, I fell into the 
history of the kings of Britain, I imputed it into 
a wonder, that within the mention which Gildas 
and Bede had made of them in a creditable trea- 
tise, I could find nothing of the kings who had 
inhabited Britain before the incarnation of Christ : 
nor, even, of Arthur and the many others who 
succeeded after the incarnation : when both their 
actions were worthy of the praise of eternity, and, 
by many people, as if inscribed, pleasantly and by 
heart, were reported. To me, thinking these 
things and of such like, many times, Walter 



* Girald Barry, another Welshman, commonly called Gi- 
raldus Cambrensis, and, by Leland and Camden, for whatever 
reason, Silvester Giraldus, a voluminous writer, was elevated, 
for the like cause, to the see of Saint David, in 1214 j as was, 
likewise, John Bale, of equal notoriety, to the see of Ossory, 
in 1552 and, in later times, according to honest Tom Hearne, 
" the reverend and learned doctor White Kennett, dean [and, 
afterward, Bishop] of Peterborough, whose fidelity and candour 
and veracity," he says, are very conspicuous and well known to 
the world" (Preface to the 7th volume of Leland's Itinerary.} 



viii PREFACE. 

archdeacon of Oxford, a man learned in the ora- 
torial art and in foreign histories, brought a 
certain most ancient book of the British language, 
which, from Brute, the first king of the Britons 
down to Cadwalader son of Cadwalo, proposed 
the acts of all daily and in order with very beauti- 
ful orations. By his request, therefore, induced, 
although within foreign gardens I had not col- 
lected fine words, nevertheless, content with a 
homespun style and my own reeds, I caused to 
translate that book into the Latin language."* 

* This man was Walter of Wallingford, otherwise Calenius, 
who was archdeacon of Oxford between, at least, 1103 and 
1 152 (see Le Neve's Fasti, and Tanner's Bibliotheca) and, bj 
no means, Walter de Ctmstantiis, who, according to Le Neve, 
succeeded in 1175, but, probably, ruuch sooner, as he is so 
styled in the character of a witness to a charter of Henry the 
second, granted in 1168 (see Charlton's History of Whitby, p. 
137); much less Walter de Mnpcs, who did not succeed before 
1196 and continued to 1223, a difference of '69' years after 
the death of Geoffrey bishop of Monmouth, who died in 1154. 
In a copy of Geoffrey's book in Welsh, infilled " Ystori Brathi- 
noedhiy Brytannied o uaith Galfridus lUoneruuthensis guedi i 
chy viei thy yn Gymraeg," described by Lhuyd as in the pos- 
session of Mr. Vaughan of Hengwrt, is the following entry 
in Welsh : " I Walter, Archdeacon of Oxford, translated this 
book out of British into Latin and, afterward, in my graver 
years, have again done it into British :" a very likely Btory, 
indeed ! which, however, puts an end to all pretences of & 
British original : There is no likelihood or, even possibility, at 
the same time, either that Walter Calculus (who, by the way 
had that appellation from Wallingford in Berkshire, the place 



PREFACE. ix 

He, afterward, in a letter to Alexander bishop 
of Lincoln, (from 1123 to 1147), says, " The love 

of his birth, the Latin name whereof is Caleva [qu. Calena] (See 
Leland's Itinerary, IX. 50) or Walter de Mapes was a Briton, 
or understood the British language ; which no Englishman, it 
is believed, has ever been known to acquire or even to culti- 
vate, unless it he Sharon Turner, the historian of the Saxons 
and the defender of the Welsh bards ; and to find a Welshman, 
at a period, when the Welsh were enemies, not subjects, to the 
king of England, when their princes were continually be- 
headed or hanged, and the whole people, in fact, universally, 
by the English, despised and detested, archdeacon of Oxford, 
would he not a little extraordinary, and is certainly unparal- 
lelled in the ecclesiastical history of England. That the mo- 
dern Welsh, indeed, do not distinguish the original from the 
translation, admitting them to have both, is evident from their 
antiquaries having begun to print a palpable translation, in The 
Cambrian Register, as the original. Lambarde, who voucheth 
his possession of a Welsh copy, older, in his opinion, than 
Monmouth's translation, seems, in this conjecture, to have been 
no less unhappy than he was in mistaking a few lines of Robert 
of Gloucester for a Saxon fragment which substantiated the 
Story of Brute. He, clearly, therefore, could be no judge of 
manuscripts. Carte, who seems sufficiently inclined to credit 
the authenticity of the British history, allows that the copy in 
Jesus-college, which Wynne asserts to be the same which 
Geoffrey made use of, " doth not seem so ancient as the time 
of Geoffrey" (1, vi;) and " is, evidently, according to Warton, 
" not older than the sixteenth century. There is reason," he 
adds, " to suspect that most [he might have safely said, all] of 
the British manuscripts of this history are translations from 
Geoffrey of Monmouth" (I. a 4). " In the library of the 
family of Davies, at Llanerk in Denbighshire," he says, "is a 
copy of Geoffrey's book in the band-writing of Guttyn Owen, 



x PREFACE. 

of thy nobility, Alexander bishop of Lincoln, 
compels me to translate the prophecies of Merlin 

a celebrated Welsh bard and antiquary, about the year 1470, 
who ascribes it to Tyssilio, a bishop, and the sonofBrockmael- 
Yscythroc Prince of Powis" (Ibi.) Lewis Morris, in one of his 
letters, mentions this manuscript, and says " I have cleared 
the matter to Mr. Carte, that he is the greatest advocate for 
the British history, as we had [r. that we have]." (Cambrian 
register, II. 489.) In another letter, however, to Carte him- 
self, he says, " You surprise me with Tyssilio's history of Bri- 
tain ; I have read of no Tyssilio a scholar" (Ibi. II, 484.) The 
fact is, that Lhuyd speaks of " a chronicle written by Tyssilio, 
which," says he, " I find inserted in H. Salbury's manuscript 
Catalogue of Welsh words, and was extant, as I have been, 
credibly, informed, within these fifty years" (Arclutologia, 
p. 225). It appears, also, that Archbishop Usher had said, 
when a young man, that he had seen an old book called " Ec- 
clesiae Britannicae Historia, autore Tyssilio Jilio Brochmaeli 
regis Powysii :" which book, however, had been lost, or carried 
to Rome, before 1680, (Cambrian Register, 1, 27). So much 
for the history of Tyssilio, which Guttyn Owen has confounded 
with the Welsh translation of Geoffrey's British romance. The 
editors of " The Myvyrian archaiology of Wales," who have 
published in the second volume of that work, two Welsii 
Translations, one under the other, intiticd Brut Tysilio and 
Brut G. ab Arthur as two originals, alledge that " The 
first of these chronicles should have been called after the name 
of Walter de Mapes, archdeacon of Oxford [an ofhee, it has 
been, already observed, he did not attain till upwards of forty 
years after the death of Geoffrey of Monmouth, so that he 
must have written this chronicle before he war, bom] ; for there 
is no authority for asserting that Tysilio wrote any thing 
beside some poetry" (preface vi.) 



PREFACE. xi 

from British into Latin, before I had written the 
history which I had begun of the acts of the 
Britons : for I had proposed to finish that first 
and explain this work subsequently : lest, while 
each labour should be in hand, my capacity 
should the less suffice to either. However, be- 
cause I was secure of pardon, which the subtile 
discretion of thy judgment would readily be- 
stow, I have put to the little books my rude pen, 
and, in a plebeian stile, interpreted a language to 
thee unknown."* These prophecies, therefore, 
are inserted about the middle of the book, in 
which the history is afterward prosecuted. The 
last chapter is couched in these words : " The 
kings, however, of those who, from that time, 
succeeded in Wales, I permit, in matter of writ- 
ing, to Caradoc of Llancarvan, my contemporary : 
the kings, truly, of the Saxons to William of 
Malmesbury and Henry of Huntingdon : whom 
I enjoin to hold their peace concerning the 
kings of the Britons, inasmuch as they have not 
that book of the British language, which Walter 
archdeacon of Oxford imported out of Britain : 
which concerning the history of these [kings] 
being veraciously edited in honour of the afore- 

* This bishop, a man of learning himself, was, also, a great 
patron and encourager of men of learning. It was to him, 
likewise, that Henry, archdeacon of Huntingdon, dedicated his 
history of England. 



xii PREFACE. 

said princes., in this manner into the Latin lan- 
guage I have taken care to translate." It ap- 
pears, from a very sensible letter of doctor 
Lloyd, bishop of Saint Asaph, to Thomas Price, 
printed in Owen's British remains, that this famous 
history made its first appearance in the year 
1138.* Henry of Huntingdon, in an epistle to 
Warm the Briton, which is inserted in several 
manuscripts of his history, and, according to 
bishop Lloyd, in some editions of Sigebert's 
chronicle, with the additions of Robert de Monte, 
otherwise de Torineio, or of Thorigny, t to whom 
Geoffrey appears to have sent, or he had himself 
procured, an early copy of the British history and 

* About the year 1100, according to Warton, Walter, arch- 
deacon of Oxford procured in Armorica an ancient chronicle in 
the British or Armorican language, intitled "Brut-y-Brenhined;" 
though neither Geoffrey nor any other ancient writer says any 
such thing, and though he himself, directly referring, in two 
different places (I, sig. a 4. n. t, e c, n. z), to Geoffrey's origi- 
nal, proves, in a third (I, sig. a 4, n. r. a 4 b, n. 3), that no 
such original exists. 

t The bishop quotes " App. Thor. [r. J7or.] Wigorn." but 
there is no Appendix in either edition, nor does it contain this 
epistle. This Robert de Torineio or de Monte, published an 
edition, of Sigebert's chronicle, which he interpolated and pol- 
luted with the new inventions of Geoffrey of Monmouth. See 
bishop Lloyd's Letter to Thomas Price, already, referred to. 
Warm would seem to have, previously to his enquiry of the 
archdeacon, acquired something upon the story of Brutus by 
hear-say- 



PREFACE. xiii 

Huntingdon thus addresses his friend : " Thou 
enquirest from me, O Warin the Briton, man 
gentle and facetious, why, narrating the actions 
of our country, I have begun from the times of 
Julius Cesar, and omitted the most nourishing 
reigns, which were from Brutus unto Julius : I 
answer thee, therefore, that neither by word nor 
writing, very frequently enquiring after the 
knowledge of those times, was I ever able to find 
it : such a violent death of oblivion overshadows 
and extinguishes the successful glory of the diu- 
turnity of mortals. Nevertheless, in this year, 
which is from the incarnation 1139, as I was 
travelling to Rome, with Theobald archbishop of 
Canterbury, at Bee, where the same archbishop 
was abbot, I found, to my great astonishment, 
writings of the aforesaid things. Forasmuch as 
I there met with Robert de Thorigny, a monk of 
the same place, a man, as well of divine as of 
secular books a most studious searcher and ac- 
cumulator : who, when he questioned me con- 
cerning the order of the history of the kings of 
England, by me published, and that which he 
asked of me had willingly heard, brought to me 
a book to read, about the kings of the Britons, 
who held our island before the English ; the ex- 
tracts of which kings, as it becomes in an epistle, 
very briefly, that is, I send to thee with great 
pleasure." He then gives a list of Geoffrey's 



xiv PREFACE. 

kings, a sort of epitome, that is, of the British 
history, and concludes by saying : " These are 
the things which to thee, most dear Warin the 
Briton, I have promised in few words, of which, 
if thou desirest more prolixity, thou must, dili- 
gently, enquire after the great book of Geoffrey 
ap Arthur, which I found at the monastery of 
Bee, where thou wilt find the aforesaid things 
treated with sufficient prolixity and clearness. 
Farewell." It, therefore, by this account, 
plainly appears that Henry had actually published 
the first seven books of his history (in some 
copies whereof the above letter is inserted be- 
tween the seventh and the eighth, in others at 
the end) before the year 1139, and, also, before 
he had ever seen or heard of the British history 
of Geoffrey ap Arthur, or any other book on the 
same subject. Yet it is asserted, by a late En- 
quirer into history, that "He was the first Eng- 
lish writer who adopted the fables of Geoffrey of 
Monmouth,"* whom he, likewise, never after- 
ward, in the course of five additional books, once 
mentions, nor follows in the minutest respect ; 
being, it would seem, fully satisfied, upon mature 
reflection, or further enquiry, of his total want 
of veracity. The British history, therefore, had, 

* Enquiry into llw history if Scotland, II, 163. Tli.it he was 
the " worst of tlie old English historians/ is equally illiberal 
and untrue. 



PREFACE. xv 

manifestly j never been seen, or heard of, either 
in Briton or elsewhere, before the year 1138, as 
it is next to impossible that so well informed 
and, to all appearance, so industrous and inquisi- 
tive, a historian as Henry of Huntingdon, a man, 
at the same time, of eminence and affluence, 
should not have met with a copy of it or known, 
at least, the nature of its contents : but the fact 
is glaring and notorious, that, with an excep- 
tion of the extracts here and there interspersed 
in Geoffrey's book, (which, certainly, traces the 
hand of a prodigious scholar for his age,) from 
Cesar's Commentaries, Bede's ecclesiastical his- 
tory, Gildas's querulous epistle on the destruc- 
tion of Britain, and Nennius's Eulogium Britan- 
niae, the legends of saint Alban, saint Dubricius, 
saint Ursula, or others, not a single name or in- 
cident, which occurs in that work, is to be found 
mentioned or alluded to by any writer or in any 
book, before the above a?ra.* That the Britons 

* Henry of Huntingdon, it is true, has a " Coel rex Britan- 
nicus de Colecester" (306), who, likewise, occurs in the British 
history ; which, at first, looks a little suspicious : but, surely, if 
disposed to plagiarise, he would never have been contented 
with " Old king Cole," and it is, in fact, certain that he had not 
seen Geoffrey's book till sometime after the publication of the 
seven first books of his own. This respectable historian, how- 
ever, according to Warton, " began his history from Cesar 
and it was only on further information that he added Brute" 
CI. 120): an assertion, at the same time, without the least 



xvi PREFACE. 

had popular stories concerning Arthur, previous 
to the publication of Geoffrey's history, is not 
meant to be denied ; since, beside the evidence 
of William of Malmesbury, which will be met 
with in another place, and what Geoffrey himself 
says, in his epistle dedicatory, already quoted, 
master Wace, a Norman poet, of singular merit, 
who reduced the entire work of Geoffrey into 
French rime, in 1155, observes, 

" Fist Arthur la ronde table, 
Dunt Breton dient meint fable :"* 

though Geoffrey of Monmouth's British history 
makes no mention of it. 

It may be possible, therefore, that Walter 
Calenius, archdeacon of Oxford, had actually 
brought some book, upon the subject of the 

proof, and a gross misrepresentation in fact. It is admitted 
that, after the publication of his first seven books, lie epito- 
mised Geoffrey's history, in a letter to his friend Warin ; but 
he never made any such additon to his own. It is, likewise, 
manifest that the Bruto (not Brutus) of Henry could not have 
been inserted upon the authority of Geoffrey, who says noth- 
ing of Dardanus, Troius, or Anchises. He had, in fact, the 
whole of this passage from the 3d and 4th chapters of Nennius, 
as our poetical historian might have easily convinced himself 
by looking into the book. 

* LeBrut, manuscript. See, also, the motto to the present 
pages and other passages throughout that excellent poem. 
However he came by the round-table, he was, certainly, never 
indebted to Geoffrey of Monmouth. 



PREFACE. xvii 

British kings, composed in the same language, 
out of Britany, which Geoffrey made use of, or, 
it may be, translated, interpolated, enlarged, 
and, in his own conceit, amended, improved, and 
rendered more palatable, to men of learning, or 
to the taste of the times : but that his own work, 
as we now have it, existed, in whatever shape or 
language, before his own time, or that the 
modern Welsh can produce his indubitable ori- 
ginal, in the British tongue, is utterly incredible* 

* See before, p. vii. It must be confessed that the inquisitor 
of Geoffrey ap Arthur seems to be fixed in what logicians call 
the horned syllogism : as, on the one hand, it may be fairly 
maintained, that a Welsh priest, apparently a good scholar, 
and, certainly, in a fair way to be a bishop, at any rate, an 
ecclesiastic of some consequence and respectability, as being 
known not only to Walter Calenius, archdeacon of Oxford, 
who, he says, positively, gave him the original Welsh manu- 
script, from which he translated the British history ; but, like- 
wise, to Alexander, bishop of Lincoln, a prelate of great learn- 
ing, at whose instance, in a personal address, he asserts himself 
to have laid aside this more important history, in order to 
gratify his lordship with an immediate Latin version of Merlin's 
prophecies ; and, moreover, Robert, earl of Gloucester, the 
natural son of king Henry the first, a nobleman, it is certain, of 
considerable importance, to whom he dedicated the work in 
question ; setting aside three of the greatest historians of his 
time, of whom he speaks in terms sufficiently familiar to induce, 
if not an intimate friendship, at least, a free acquaintance, 
(William of Malmesbury, that is, Henry archdeacon of Hun- 
tingdon, and Caradoc of Llancarvan, his own countryman,) 
c 



xviii PREFACE. 

This new-ancient history was, immediately 
upon its appearance, or, as soon, at least, a9 

would or could impose upon such and so many distinguished 
personages with the most abominable forgery, the most ex- 
travagant falsehood, and the most brazen faced impudence, is 
by no means a proof of those circumstances : as we never find 
him reviled by, or on the part of, any of these illustrious 
characters, for so gross an imposition. This, no douht, is very 
much in his favour ; but it may be urged, with equal force, on 
the other hand, that the book which he produced, as a history, 
is, certainly, a series of palpable and monstrous lies ; that, 
neither Walter Calenius, nor any other, friend or favourer, of 
or near his own age, not even his own countryman, Girald 
Barry, who, being himself a bishop, might, naturally, have 
been expected to have stood forward in the defence of such 
an illustrious precursor, whose steps, in his prelatical pursuits, 
he had followed with such good fortune : not a solitary Welsh- 
man to support him, in any respect, but by following his ex- 
ample ; that the pretended original has never been found, nor 
any, the least, evidence adduced in favour of its authenticity ; 
that there have been forgers, of as much art, talent, falsehood 
and impudence, in other ages, whose literary impostures have, 
for a time, at least, been, altogether, as successful : John 
Foidun, for instance, Hector Bois, Annius of Viterbo, George 
Buchanan, James Macpherson, Thomas Chatterton, and a 
variety of other such respectable characters. It is a thousand 
pities that John Pinkerton had not flourished in the age, and 
enjoyed the friendship of Geoffrey of Monmouth ; that lie 
might have certified, with his sacred signature, the integrity 
and truth of the original manuscript of that veracious historian, 
as he did the no less genuine Shaktperiano, of William Henry 
Ireland. (Samuel, his father, had no hand in this forgery, 
though it cost him his life). 



PREFACE. xix 

copies could be procured, seized, with avidity, 
by the eager and the weak, whose zeal and 
ignorance disqualified them from distinguishing 
between history and fable * Alfred of Beverley 

* A Welsh translation of Geoffrey ap Arthur's British his- 
tory, under the title of " Brut Breninodd ynys Prydain : neu 
Brut y Breninod," or " Brut Tysilio," has been inserted in a 
late publication intitled " The Myvyrian archaiology of 
Wales," although the editors allow that "there is no authority 
for asserting that Tysilio wrote any thing, beside some poetry" 
and that this chronicle " should have been called after the 
name of Walter Mapes, archdeacon of Oxford, who " did 
turn this book out of Welsh into Latin and, in his old age, 
turned it the second time out of Latin into Welsh." It it 
absolutely impossible, that Walter Mapes (made archdeacon 
of Oxford in 1197) was any way connected with Geoffrey of 
Monmouth, who died in 1154) or that he or any other Walter, 
archdeacon of Oxford, did actually translate or was capable of 
translating, Geoffrey's book, either backward or forward, nor 
can any thing be more absurd than to illustrate one translation 
by another, both from a common original. If, indeed, any 
reliance could be placed in the genuineness of the Afallenau. 
Myrddin, or Merlin's orchard, supposed to have been written 
by Myrddin ap Morfryn or Myrddin wylt, Merlinus Sylvesti-is or 
Caledonius, about the year 550, and mentioning Medrawd, Arthur, 
Gwenhwyfar and the battle of Camlan, nothing would more 
effectually tend to prove that either Geoffrey or his British 
author, had worked, at least, on ancient materials : but, unless 
a manuscript could be produced, in the Welsh language, an- 
terior to the twelfth century, (which it is believed, does not 
exist,) the probability is very powerful that every remnant of 
British literature, whether poetical or historical, in which mci- 
c 2 



xx PREFACE. 

was the first who, in 1149, deflowered the chaste 
beauties of Geoffrey of Monmouth, whose narra- 
tive, he says, was then in the mouths of several, 
so that he who had no knowledge of it incurred 
the mark of a clown : he had procured a copy of 
it, it seems, with difficulty and never once men- 
tions his name.* To him may be added Ralph 
de Diceto, Florence of Worcester, Robert of 
Gloucester, Roger of Chester, Randal Higden, 

tion is made of Arthur, the son of Uther Pendragon, or any 
coincident with Geoffrey of Monmouth, has been composed or 
interpolated since his time. " If some accounts of Arthur," 
says Whitaker, author of the " History of Manchester," " be 
certainly, spurious, others are as certainly genuine,*' (4ro edi- 
tion, II, 32). " The genuine actions of the chief are mentioned 
by his own historians." (Ibi.) none of which, however, he is 
able to authenticate or produce : unless by quoting the forged 
*' Antiquities of the church of Glastonbury," falsely imputed to 
William of Malmesbury ; " the romance of La mm-te d' Arthur," 
" founded, chiefly," he says, " on local traditions and real 
histories." 

* He says, in one place, " Quintus, id est, ultimus Britan~ 
nici regni status sub xii. cucurrit regibus, de quibus non parva 
parvitatem meam meditacio vexat, quid causa: extiterit, quod de 
inclito rege Arturo nichil Bomana, nichil Anglorum hystoria 
meminerit." (p. 76.) (Thus in English : The fifth, that is, the 
last state of the British dominion ran under twelve kings, of 
which no little study troubles my littleness, what could have 
been the reasons, that of the famous king Arthur, nothing (lie 
Roman [history], nothing the history of the Engles should 
have made mention.) 



PREFACE. xxi 

Matthew of Westminster, the author of Brute of 
England, and innumerable other historians, of 
more or less merit, down, almost, to the present 
time, made it the foundation and most brilliant 
ornament of their respective works. Even the 
supposititious laws of Edward the confessor are 
convicted of forgery by the story of Arthur. It 
spread rapidly, likewise, into foreign countries,* 
and was every were eagerly permitted to impreg- 
nate and pollute the genuine history of ancient 
times ; so that few, if any, writers are to be 
found who have not, in a greater or less degree, 
in giving an account of the Britons, adopted 
these romantic fables for authentic facts. f There 
were, however, at a very early period, some few 
men of penetration and judgment who could 
not suffer such a palpable and impudent forgery 
to pass without indignant reprobation. The first, 
of those that appeared in the lists, was William 
of Newbrough, who died in 1208, in the preface 
to his own chronicle ; where he has given a sort 
of Critical review of this famous history which 

* Orderkus Vitalis had been fortunate enough to obtain a 
copy before 1141, jest in time to give an extract from Merlin's 
prophecies ; as he finished his history in this year, in which 
also he is supposed to have died. See h. 887". 

t See what has been, already, said of Robert de Thorigny, 
p. xii. 

c 3 



xxii PREFACE. 

deserves to be transcribed j as being not only a 
criticism of extraordinay merit, for the time, but 
even the only thing of the kind to be found in 
ancient English history. 

" The venerable priest and monk, Bede," he 
says, " wrote the history of our nation that is of 
the Engles : who, doubtless, took up his begin- 
ning the lower that he might the more com- 
petently attain to that which he especially in- 
tended : he even, with artful brevity, glanced at 
the more celebrated actions of the Britons, who 
are known to have been the first inhabitants of 
our isle. The nation of the Britons, however, 
had their own historiographer, Gildas, before 
our Bede, which he also witnesseth, inserting 
certain words of his in his letters ; as I myself 
proved, when, some years ago, I fell upon read- 
ing the book of the same Gildas. For, as it is 
very unpolished and insipid in stile, few caring 
either to transcribe or possess it, it is rarely 
found.* It is nevertheless, no light document 

* It is more common at present, having gone through no 
less than five several editions in Latin or English, apd, though 
not much, indeed, of a history nor otherwise undeserving of 
the character here given of it, is, at the same time, a curious 
and valuable remnant of antiquity, to which as some one, 
falsely assuming the name of William of Malmcsbury, men- 
tions " Gildas the historian, to whom the Britons owe, if they 
have any, [their] reputation among other people." More is said 
of him hereafter. 



PREFACE. xxiii 

of his integrity, because, in producing the truth 
he does not spare his own nation, and when, 
very rarely, he speaks good of his countrymen, 
he deplores many evils in them, nor feared, that 
he would not conceal the truth, a Briton to write 
of Britons, that "they were neither brave in 
war, nor faithful in peace." But, on the other 
hand, a certain writer has started up in our 
times, for expiating these specks of the Britons, 
weaving together ridiculous fictions concerning 
them, and, with impudent vanity, lifting them up 
far above the valour of the Macedonians and the 
Romans. He is called Geoffrey, having the sur- 
name of Arthur j for this reason, that the fables 
concerning Arthur, taken from the ancient fic- 
tions of the Britons* and increased out of his 
own store, by the overdrawn pretence of the 
Latin tongue, he hath clothed with the honour- 
able name of history : who, also, with greater 
daring, the most fallacious divinations of one 
Merlin, to which he has, certainly, added very 
much of his own, while he translated them into 
Latin, hath published as prophecies, authentic, 
and supported by immoveable truth, and this 

* He takes it for granted, therefore, that the fables of 
Arthur, in Geoffrey's history were partly taken " ex priscis 
Britonum figmentis." Nothing of this kind, however, appear* 
to be now extant. 



xxiv PREFACE. 

Merlin,, in fact, he fables to have been born of 
an incubus-devil-father of a woman : to whom, 
beside, as if taking after his father, he has attri- 
buted the most excellent and extensive prescience 
of things to come : when, assuredly, and with 
true reasons and the sacred writings, we are 
taught, that the devils, secluded from the light 
of god, by no means foreknow things to come 
by contemplation, but collect certain future 
events from signs, better known to them than 
to us, more by conjecture than knowledge. 
Finally, in their ever so much subtler conjec- 
tures, they are often deceived and deceive : 
when, yet, by the prestiges of divinations, with 
the unskilful, they may arrogate to themselves 
the prescience of things to come, which they 
assuredly have not. Truly, the perspicuous 
fallacy of the divinations of Merlin is in these 
events which are known to have happened in 
the kingdom of the Engles after the death of 
the before-named Geoffrey, who translated the 
trifles of these divinations out of British : to 
which, as it is not vainly believed, he added 
much from his own fiction. Moreover, to those 
which happened either before him or in his own 
days, he, in such wise, tempered his own fictions, 
which he, certainly, could easily do, that they 
might receive congruous interpretation. Beside, 



PREFACE. xxv 

in his book, which he calls The history of the 
Britons, how petulantly and how impudently 
he lies., almost, through the whole, no one, un- 
less acquainted with the old historians, when he 
shall dip into his book, is permitted to doubt. 
For he, who hath not learned the truth of things 
done, admits, indiscreetly, the vanity of fables. 
I omit how many of the acts of the Britons, be- 
fore the empire of Julius Cesar, this man hath 
feigned or, feigned by others, hath written them 
as authentic. I omit whatsoever he has raved 
in praise of the Britons, against the faith of 
historical truth, from the time of Julius Cesar, 
under whom the Britons began to be of the 
Roman empire until the time of Honorius the 
emperor, under whom the -Romans, by reason 
of the more urgent business of the republic, 
voluntarily departed from Britain. Certainly, 
the Britons, the Romans departing, become 
their own masters, yea rather left to themselves, 
to their own ruin and exposed as prey to the 
Picts and Scots, are read to have had a king 
Vortigern, by whom, for the protection of the 
kingdom, the Saxons or Engles, under their 
leader Hengist, came into Britain ; the barbaric 
irruptions they repelled for a time, but, after- 
ward, having spied the fertility of the island and 
the sloth of the natives, the league being broken, 



xxvi PREFACE. 

they turned their arms against those by whom 
they had been invited : who being shortly 
routed, their wretched remains, which are now 
called Welsh, they straitened in impassable 
mountains and woods, and had, by a series of 
succession, most brave and widely governing 
kings : of whom were Ethelbert, the great 
grandson of Hengist, who, his empire being ex- 
tended from the Gallic sea into the Humber, 
took up the light yoke of Christ, at the preach- 
ing of Augustine j Alfred, who, presiding over 
the Northumbrians, subdued, at once, the Bri- 
tons and the Scots, with vast slaughter ; Edwin, 
who, succeeding to Alfred, reigned, at the same 
time, over the Engles and the Britons ; Oswald, 
his successor, who governed all the people of 
Britain. It will be evident, that these things, 
according to the historical truth displayed by 
the venerable Bede, are authentic : all things 
which this man has taken pains to write, con- 
cerning Arthur, and either his successors, or, 
after Vortigern, his predecessors, partly by him- 
self, partly, also, by others, have, it is evident, 
been feigned, either by the unbridled passion of 
lying or even for the sake of pleasing the Bri- 
tons, of whom a great many are reported to be 
so brutish, that they are said to expect that 
Arthur is yet, as it were, about to come, nor can 



PREFACE. xxvn 

they bear to hear that he is dead* Finally, he 
makes Aurelius Ambrosius succeed to Vortigern (the 

* Certainly, such a tradition existed among the Britons or 
Welsh, before the time of Geoffrey of Monmouth. It is 
mentioned by William of Malmesbury, who, observing that 
the sepulchre of Arthur had never been discovered, adds, 
" whence the antiquity of elegiac songs and fables, that he is 
yet to come." (B. 3, P. 115.) 

Master Wace, in his Roman de Brut, a liberal translation 
from Geoffrey of Monmouth, finished in 1155, after relating the 
battle of Camblan, proceeds to tell us, modestly enough : 

' ' Artur, si la geste ne ment, 
El querfu nafre mortelement, 
En Avalon sejit mener, 
Pur set plaes mediciner ; 
Uncore i est, Breton I'atendent, 
Si com il dient e entendent ; 
De la vendra, uncore pot vivere. 
Meistre Wace, ki fist cest livere, 
Nen volt plus dire de safin 
Ke en dist le prophete Merlin ; 
Merlin dist de Artur outdrait, 
Ke sa mort autuse serreit. 
Li prophete dist verite, 
Tut tens en ad lom puis dote, 
E dutera co crei tut dis 
Sil est mort u il est vifs." 

(" — Arthur himself thore 
Men sais he wonded sore, 
For his wondes wer to drede, 
Therfor, thei did him Jede 



xxviii PREFACE. 

Saxons, whom Vortigern had sent for, being de- 
feated and expelled) egregiously reigning in the 

Into the ' ile' of Avaloun 

And thus sais ilka Bretoun : 

That olyve ther he es, 

Man in blode and in flesch 

And after him yit thei loke. 

Maister Was, that ' made' this boke, 

He sais no more of his fine 

Than dos the prophete Merlyne : 

Merlyn sais, full mervailous 

That Arthur [s] dede was doutous ; 

Therfor, the Bretons drede 

And sais he lyves in lede : 

But I say thei trowe wrong 

If he ' lyve' his life is long ; 

Bot the Bretons loude lie, 

He was so wonded him burd die.") 

(Robert of Brunne.) 
The French, in fact, have an old romance, in manuscript, 
intitled, " Roman d'Arthus le rethore" (that is, Arthur restored 
or revived). Alanus de Insulis or Allan of Lile, who wrote a 
book under the.following title and died in 1202 : 

" Prophetia Anglicana [1. Britannica] et Romano. : hoc est, 
Merlini Ambrosii Britaiuii, ex incubo olim, ante annos mille 
ducentos in Anglia [1. Britannia] nati vaticinia, a Gal/redo 
Monumetensi Latine conscripta, una cum septem explanatwnum 
in eandem prophctam, exccllentissimi sui temporis oratoris, poly- 
hhtoris [falso] et thcologi ;" FrancoJ'urti 1608, octavo. In this 
book, after reciting this part of one of the pretended propecies 
of the visionary Merlin (apud Galfrcdi Mammetauu Historia 
regum Britanniae, L. 7, c. S), which .'peaks of A " bov of 



PREFACE. xxix 

whole of Britain, and to him gives Uther-Pen- 
dragon, his brother, for successor, reigning with 

Cornwall," who shall give his assistance. — " The house of 
Romulus shall dread its fierceness and his end shall be du- 
bious :" this boar Allan applies to Arthur, and thus proceeds : 
" Most, truly, indeed, as at this very day, the various opinion 
of men proves concerning his life and death : but, if you do 
not believe me, go into the Armorican kingdom, that is Less- 
Britain, and proclaim, through the ways and streets, Arthur is 
dead, in the manner of other dead men, and, then, certainly, 
you will prove by the thing itself that the prophecy of Merlin 
is true ; if, nevertheless, you should be thence able to escape 
free ; but you [will] either be stifled by the curses of the hearers 
or, certainly, be overwhelmed with stones (B. 1, P. 19, 20). 
It may be fairly inferred that, about this time (as, in fact, it is 
proved by William of Malmesbury), that this notion had be- 
come a proverb, in use to ridicule those who were ever ready 
to believe any thing, manifestly, impossible or absurd. This 
occurs in the 57th epistle of Petrus Blosensis (Peter of Blois), 
who was contemporary with Allan de insulis. 

" Quibus si credideris 

Expectare poteris 

Arturum cum Britonibus." 
This idea seems to be, continually, running in his head, for in 
the 34th epistle : " As yet," he says, " I conceive the wishes 
of a more fortunate event and, peradventure, with the Britons, 
I tarry for Arthur, about to come, and, with the Jews, expect 
the Messiah," 

"In Sicily," according to Gervase of Tilbury, "is mount 
iEtna. . . In the desert of this mountain the natives relate 
that the great Arthur hath appeared in our times. For when, 
on a certain day, the- keeper of the palfrey of the bishop of 



xxx PREFACE. 

no unequal power and glory j inserting more 
things about his Merlin, by a profuse liberty of 

Catania would have beat the horse committed to him, the horse, 
by a sudden impulse of lasciviousness [or] fatness, leaping and 
betaking himself to his own liberty, fled. Being sought, by the 
servant following him, through the arduous and precipitous 
parts of the mountain and not found, fear arising to the foot- 
man, he sought him about the obscure parts of the mountain. 
Why more words ? a most narrow, but plain place was found : 
the lad came into a most spacious plain, pleasant and filled 
with all delights and there, in a palace constructed by wonder- 
ful art, [saw] Arthur, lying on a couch of royal furniture and 
when, from the stranger and foreigner, he demanded the cause 
of his arrival, the cause of his journey being known, he imme- 
diately caused the bishops palfrey to be brought and com- 
mended to the servant that it should be restored to the bishop; 
adding, that he there, of old, in a battle, with Mordred, lii> 
nephew and Childeric, general of the Saxons, his wounds every 
year bleeding afresh, had long remained sick ; yea, rather, as 
I received from the natives, he destined his presents to that 
prelate, which were seen by many, admired by more, with 
fabulous novelty. But, in the forests of BriUiin, Greater or 
Less, similar things are reported to have happened, the foresters 
relating it, that they, in every other day, about noon and in 
the first dead times of nights, under the lull moon, the moon 
shining, have very often seen a number of men hunting and 
the noise of dogs and horns, who, to those enquiring, affirm 
that they are of the society and family of Arthur." (Otia im- 
perialia (Scrip. Bruns. Leibnitii, I, 9'21\ This seems to re- 
semble ihefamilia Ihllcquini; sec Speculum historiale Vinceutii. 
The Sicilians, of this day, have a tradition that the British 
Arthur is still preserved alive with them, by bis sister Morgau, 



PREFACE. xxxi 

lying. To Uther-Pendragon, being deceased, he 
makes Arthur, his son, to succeed in the kingdom 
of Britain, the fourth from Vortigern, as our 
Bede puts Ethelbert, the patron of Augustine, 
in the kingdom of the Engles, the fourth from 
Hengist. Therefore, the reign of Arthur and 
the entry of Augustine into Britain ought to con- 
cur. But how much the mere truth of history 
will prejudicate the falsity contrived in this 
place, may be clearly seen by the quickness of 

La fata Morgana, whose fairy palace, a singular phaenomenon, 
is occasionally seen from Reggio, in the opposite sea of Mes- 
sina. (See Swinburne's Travels in the two Sicilys, II, 263.) 

" Because he [ArthurJ is said to be buried in the monasterial 
church of Glasinbery [Glastonbury], with this kind of epitaph : 

Hicjacet Arthurus, rex quondam, rexquefuturus, 
it is believed by the vulgar that he still lives and, as it is sung in 
comedies, is about to come by surprise, to restore the dispersed 
and exiled Britons to their own. (Scotichronicon, see Hearne's 
edition, p. 218). 

Cervantes, upon whatever authority, put the following re- 
lation into the mouth of Don Quixote ; " Have not your wor- 
ships read the annals and histories of England whence are 
treated the famous actions of king Arthur, ... of whom is an 
ancient and common tradition in all that kingdom of Great 
Britain, that this king did not die, but, by the art of enchant- 
ment was converted into a crow, and that, in process of time, 
he is to return to reign and to recover his kingdom and sceptre : 
for which reason it was never proved, that, since that time to 
this, ' an' Englishman hath killed a crow." (Part I, chap. xui.) 



xxxii PREFACE. 

the mind, even by one sand-blind. This Arthur, 
however, he makes famous and respectable over 
all men, and wills that he should be as great in 
his actions, as it has pleased him to feign. Fi- 
nally, in the first place, he makes him to triumph, 
at pleasure, over the Engles, Picts and Scots: 
afterward to subjugate to his dominion, Ireland, 
the Orkneys, Gothland, Norway, Denmark, 
partly in battle, partly, also, by the sole terror 
of his name. To these, likewise, he adds Ice- 
land, which, according to some, is called ultima 
Thule, that to that Briton, in truth, may appear 
to belong that which was flatteringly said to 
Augustus the Roman, by a noble poet : 
tibi serviet ultima Thule. 

Afterward, he makes him to vex the Gauls,* in 
battle and over them, in a short time subdued, 
most happily to triumph : whom Julius Cesar, 
with the greatest dangers and labours, could 
scarcely subjugate in ten years : that the least 
finger, namely, of the Briton may appear [hea- 
vier] than the loins of the great Cesar. After 
these victories, he brings him back into Britain, 

* Not the Gallos, or people, but Gallias, the countries, Cis- 
alpine and Transalpine Gaul. The Franks, however, and not 
the Gauls, had the possession of the latter country in Arthur's 
time, having served the original inhabitants pretty much aa 
the Saxons did the Britons. 



PREFACE. xxxiii 

•with manifold triumph and makes him, with the 
subdued kings and princes, celebrate a most fa- 
mous feast, at which are present three arch- 
bishops, namely, of the Britons, of London, of 
Caerleon, and of York 5 whereas, the Britons, in 
fact, never had one archbishop. For Augustine, 
having received the pallium from the Roman 
pontiff, was made the first archbishop in Britain. 
But the barbarous nations of Europe, also, for- 
merly converted to the faith of Christ, content 
with bishops, did not regard the prerogative of 
the pallium. In fine, the Irish, Norwegians, 
Danes, Goths, when, formerly, they are known 
to have been christians and to have had bishops, 
have, in our time, begun to have archbishops.* 
Thence the fabler, that he may carry his Arthur 
to the highest pitch, makes him to denounce 



* It is probable that our author has been a little too hasty 
m asserting that the Britons hart no archbishops : saint David 
is, constantly, in old Welsh manuscripts, called archbishop of 
Menevia ; as saints Dubricius and Teliaus are archbishops of 
Lar.daff. 

" About a year after [905]," says Caracloc, " died Asser, 
archbishop of Wales" (906. " Obiit Asser, Cambriae archie- 
piscopus"). Historie of Cambria [158-i] ; Usher, 52. Asser, 
bishop of Sherburn, who wrote annals " Of the actions of 
Alfred," and died in 910, mentions an archbishop " Novis 
(or Nonis) propinquum meum." (P. 49.) 

D 



xxxiv PREFACE. 

Avar against the Romans : before this war, in 
single combat, to overthrow a giant of wonderful 
size j whereas, after the times of David, one can 
read of no giant. In the sequel, by a more pro- 
fuse license of lying, he makes to assemble 
against him, with the Romans, the great kings 
of the whole world : that is to say, of Greece, 
of Africa, of Spain, of the Parthians, of the 
Medes, of the Iturians, of Libya, of Egypt, of 
Babylon, of Bithynia, of Phrygia, of Syria, of 
Boeotia, of Crete, and relates that all were by 
him defeated in one battle : whereas Alexander, 
that great man, and famous in all ages, sweated 
for twelve years in overcoming the princes in 
some of such great kingdoms. Certainly, he 
makes the little finger of his Arthur heavier than 
the loins of Alexander the great, especially when, 
before this victory of so many kings, he makes 
him commemorate to his followers, in a ha- 
rangue, the subduction of thirty kingdoms, al- 
ready made by himself and them. But our 
fabler could not find so many kingdoms in our 
globe, beside those mentioned, which, certainly, 
he had never subdued. Does he dream of ano- 
ther globe, having infinite kingdoms, in which 
those things happened which he has above-men- 
tioned ? forasmuch as, in our globe, such things 
never happened. For how could the ancient 



PREFACE. xxxv 

historiographers, to whom it was great care to 
omit, in writing, nothing memorable, who are 
even known to have committed to memory in- 
different things, pass over in silence this incom- 
parable man and his acts, above measure remark- 
able? How, I say, came they to suppress in 
silence either Arthur, monarch of the Britons, 
more noble than Alexander the great and his 
acts, or Merlin, prophet of the Britons, equal to 
our Isaiah and his sayings ? For what less has he 
attributed, in the foreknowledge, that is, of 
future things, to his Merlin, than we to our 
Isaiah : unless that he did not dare to insert in 
his prophecies, These things said the lord, and was 
ashamed to insert, These things said the devil; 
forasmuch as this ought to suit a prophet, the 
son of an incubus demon? As, therefore, the 
ancient historians have made not the slightest 
mention of these things, it appears that whatso- 
ever things, about Arthur and Merlin, this man 
has published in writing, to feed the curiosity of 
the imprudent, are feigned from liars : and it is 
to be noted, that he, afterward, relates that the 
same Arthur, mortally wounded in battle, having 
disposed of his kingdom, went, to have his 
wounds cured, into that island, which the British 
fables feign, of Avalon : not daring, for fear of 
2 



xxxvi PREFACE. 

the Britons, to say that he is dead/'- whom yet, 
in truth, the brutish Britons expect to come. 
But, of the successors of Arthur, he lies with 
equal impudence, attributing to them, until, al- 
most, the seventh generation, the monarchy of 
Britain, and making petty kinglets and ministers 
of those whom the venerable Bede says were the 
bravest kings of England, nobly governing uni- 
versal Britain. As, therefore, to the same Bede, 
of whose wisdom and sincerity it is not lawful to 
doubt, faith, in all things, should be had : that 
fabler, with his fables, without doubt, should be 
rejected by all." 

Doctor Powell, who republished the abridge- 
ment of Geoffrey's history by Ponticus Virunnius, 
along with the itinerary and description of ^'ales 
by Girald Barry, in 1585, observes in his preface 
to the first of those treatises that the faith of 
Newbrough in this matter is not proved to him : 
because, he says, " in our annals, written three 
hundred years before, I find it declared, in terms, 
that this William (who is there called Gvoilym 

* Certainly, his exact words arc these : " That famous king 
Arthur was mortally wounded [in Cornwall, at the river Cam- 
bula], who, tlnncc, being carried into the island of Avallon 
[apples] to be cured of his wounds, to his kinsman Constantine, 
the son of Cador, duke of Cornwall, he judged in the year 
from the incarnation of the lord 542. (B. xi. C. ii.) 



PREFACE. xxxvii 

bach, that is Gulielmus parvus^ Guillaume Pelyt, 
or William Little),* after the death of Geoffrey 
Arthur, bishop of Elguen (otherwise Saint Asaph), 
when he had sought for the bishopric, about 
1165, and suffered a repulse, and being illtreated 
by David, the son of prince Owen, thence to 
have taken cause of back-biting and, afterward, 
vomited the venom of his malice upon the Bri- 
tish nation, which, to a prudent reader, also, 
will," he thinks, " easily appear, from the acri- 
mony and bitterness of his writing :" in answer 
to which, one need only say, with honest Tom 
Hearne • " I wish Powell had described the 
very words of these annals, and indicated in what 
place or in what library, he found it." 

Even Girald Barry, himself a Welshman and 
a bishop, calls the British history a lying book : 
" Sicut fabulosa Galfridi mentitur historia."\ 
The same author, likewise, mentions a Welsh- 
man, in his own time, whose name was Melerius ; 
he was expert in magic and familiar with devils . 
Inspecting a book full of lies and either written 

* He is found under all these names (except the Welsh) ; 
was born at Bridlington, in 1135 and, from his being a canon 
ofNewbrough, near Coxwold, in Yorkshire, is usually called 
Gulielmus Newbrigensis or William of Newbrougg. See 
Hearne, Cave, Tanner, <|-r. 

+ Description of Wales C. 7. 



xxxviii PREFACE. 

falsely or even containing in itself what was 
false, he straitway, though he were, altogether, 
illiterate, put his finger to the place of falsehood. 
It happened, upon a time, the unclean spirits too 
much insulting him, that he put in his bosom 
the gospel of saint John ; when, instantaneously, 
these devils, flying like birds, all entirely va- 
nished : which gospel being, afterward, taken 
away and the history of the Britons, written by 
Geoffrey Arthur, substituted in its place, for the 
sake of the experiment, not, only, to his whole 
body, but, also, to the book put upon him, they 
sat a long while, more frequently and more 
offensively than usual.* It is not, therefore, true, 
that John Wethamstede, abbot of Saint-Albans, 
and a writer of great merit, about the year 1460, 
was " the first opposer of the story of king Brute," 
as bishop Nicholson asserts, from " John Stow's 
preface to his chronicle ;" neither does it appear 
where Whethamstede has made such opposition ; 
which, however, will, undoubtedly, do him cre- 
dit when discovered. f The history of Geoffrey, 
bishop as he was, has been, likewise, pronounced, 

* Itinerary of Wales, B. I. C. 5. 

+ His words, as cited, by Norden, in his Speculum Britan- 
nia, 1593, p. 3, arc " Totus processus de Bruto illo est poeticu.s 
potius quain historicus :"' but whence he had (hcru does not 
appear. 



PREFACE. xxxix 

without the least ceremony or respect, by myn- 
heer Scriver, a Dutch critic, " a great, heavy, 
long, thick, palpable and most impudent, lie : 
which," says he, " the learned will know with- 
out my admonition or demonstration,"* and sir 
William Temple has declared, " That it is a tale 
forged at pleasure, by the wit or folly of its first 
author, and not to be regarded," f 

It must, indeed, respecting the Britons or 
modern Welsh, be confessed, that no people in 
the world can have more vanity or less judgment. 
As conclusive proofs of this assertion, they have 
all along believed and still do believe, not only 
the authenticity of the celebrated history, of 
which we are, at present, discussing the merits, 
but, also, its internal veracity and even infallibi- 
lity, as if the offspring of divine inspiration, 
though abounding as we have seen and shall see, 
more and more clearly, in looking over it, a lie 
in every leaf, with the most extravagant and 
absurd events ; and being, throughout, altogether 
contradictory to and contradicted by, the Roman 
and Saxon history, and that, in short, of every 
ancient nation. To prove, if possible, in a 
stronger degree, the singular propensity and 
perverseness of this extraordinary people, John 

* Sheringham, p. 8. 

t Introduction to the history of "England. 



xl PREFACE. 

Lewis, esquire, barrister at law, one of its most 
esteemed antiquaries, as they call them, and, in 
the bulk, at least, if not the matter and merit, 
of his work, its principal historian, having, about 
the year 1613, composed or compiled, what he 
was pleased to intitle, " The history of Great- 
Britain, from the first inhabitants thereof, till 
the death of Cadwallader, &c." being printed 
and published at London, in a large and pompous 
folio, in 1729 j and edited, with a parallel intro- 
duction, by one Hugh Thomas, another Welsh- 
man, equally idiotical. This verbose historio- 
grapher, not content with the series of British 
kings, invented or improved by Geoffrey of 
Monmouth and commencing with Brute, great- 
grandson of yEneas, 1159 years before the chris- 
tian sera, has deduced his chronology " from the 
floude to Brute," on the immaculate authority of 
tf The five books of antiquities of Berosus [the 
Chaldean]," one of the infamous and long- be- 
fore-exploded, forgeries of John Annius of Vi- 
terbo, a monk of the order of saint Dominick, 
edited at Rome in 1497, folio ; which one might 
be well assured would be greedily swallowed by 
the Welsh antiquaries, among whom was Hum- 
phrey Llwyd, in Mr. Camden's opinion, one of 
the best of his time; who, in his " Britannicer 
descripfinnis commentariolum (Colouicr, 1568), 



PREFACE. xli 

speaking of the antiquity of the British tongue, 
he adds, " Antiquissimam etiam fuisse ex Beroso, 
Annio, Giambullario et Postello, liquet'' : ad- 
mirable authorities, no doubt, for a Welsh an- 
tiquary ! The first monarch of this more ancient 
series is " Gomer, the father of [the] Cymbri 
and Gaules," the second, Samothes, Dis or Dis- 
celta ; and so he goes on, to Magus, Sarron, 
Druys, Bardus, Longus, Lucus, Celtes, Galates, 
Narbon, Lugdus, Belgius, Jasius, Allobrox, 
iEgyptus, Parys, Olbius, Galates, junior, Namnes 
and Francicus : all perfect nonentities and men 
of straw ! To this mendacious, impudent, and 
absurd farago, the romance of Geoffrey Arthur, 
Avhich, certainly, has no inconsiderable smack of 
both scholarship and talent, is truth and lustre. 
It is, nevertheless, held in the highest credit and 
estimation by the modern Welsh, as the forgeries 
of Hector Bois, adopted by Buchanan and even 
introduced by Lewis, as affording suitable com- 
panions for his ante-Btuteian kings, are by the 
Scots. 

To return, however, to " the long-lost Arthur j " 
who, after being so highly extolled by the right- 
reverend father in god, Geoffrey, lord bishop of 
Saint-Asaph and his herd of plagiarists and pa- 
rasites, as the greatest, richest, most powerful, 
valiant, glorious and successful monarch, that 



xlii PRE FA C E. 

ever reigned in the world, has, not only had his 
sovereignty, valour, glory and good fortune, but, 
even, his very existence, positively and absolutely 
denied, by an author of the eighteenth century, 
of scarcely less notoriety than that accomplished 
prelate of the twelfth ; whom, however he may 
imitate in one instance, he widely differs from 
in another 5 his lordship being a u Cumri" and 
a " Celt," his emulator, a " Goth" or " Pik," a 
Pikish-Goth or Gothick-Pik. " The reader," 
according to this learned historian, " need hardly 
be told, that Arthur was, merely, a name given, 
by the Welch, [Welsh] to Aurelius Ambrosius 
their Roman defender against the Saxons" (En- 
quiry,\,76) : he refers, in support of this modest 
and veracious assertion, to Gildas, C. 25 and 
Bede, I, 16; meaning, no doubt, Geoffrey of 
Monmouth, B. 8, C. 2 ; with the same facility 
and integrity, as he is, on other occasions, ac- 
customed to cite John Fordun under the name 
of William of Malmesbury (see Enquiry, II. 203, 
Wil. Malms.) in whom no such thing is to be 
found : but consult, Fordun, B. 4, C. 44 ; again 
II, 220 : " But William of Malmesbury [John 
Fordun] says, that Malcom [Malcolm] only per- 
mitted Duncan, his grandson and heir, who was 
possessed of Cumberland, to pay homage for 
that province : this plain account sufficiently 



PREFACE. xliii 

refutes the usurpative style of the Saxon chroni- 
cle" and the words of Wynne., the sophisticator 
of Caradoc, for those of that author (Enquiry 
I, 96). Neither Gildas, in fact, nor Bede, though 
both mention (not, indeed, Aurelius Ambrosius, a 
corruption of Geoffrey of Monmouth) Ambrosius 
Aurelianus, (followed by Girald Barry) says any 
such thing, never once naming or any way al- 
luding to Arthur. Even Geoffrey himself makes 
them distinct personages, and, that they actually 
were so, will, sufficiently, appear by the direct 
and positive testimony of Nennius, William of 
Malmesbury, Henry of Huntingdon and Caradoc 
of Llancarvan ; all ancient and respectable his- 
torians. As for the first, he died long before the 
rest were born ; although not one of the latter 
ever had or saw a copy of Geoffrey's history, as 
he himself boasts, except Henry of Huntingdon, 
who did not meet with it, till after he had pub- 
lished, at least, the first seven books of his own. 
He, nevertheless, reasserts, " That Arthur was 
Aurelius Ambrosius is certain, but the Arthur of 
Welch history is a non-existence" (Enquiry, 
I, 76) : an assertion just as true as that Alexan- 
der the great was Julius Cesar, or Merlin the 
prophet, John Pinkerton. 



LIFE 



KING ARTHUR. 



THE 

LIFE OF KING ARTHUR. 



CHAP. I. 

Of the Britons. 



I he most ancient author, from whom we have 
any account of the Britons is, unquestionably, 
Julius Cesar, who, in the year of Rome 698, be- 
ing the 55th before the vulgar aera, invaded 
Britain, for the first time, and, in the following 
year, repeated the attempt ; having, on both oc- 
casions, had many severe, though, in some mea- 
sure, successful, engagements with the natives ; 
but, assuredly, not succeeding in his project to 
subjugate the island to the Roman dominion : 
since, as the historical poet, Lucan, makes Pom- 
pey observe : 

" Territa quaesitis ostendit lerga Britannis?"* 
The energy, in fact, and vigour of their attacks 
or repulses, their military manoeuvres and pecu- 

*L.2, v. 572. 



4 THE LIFE OF 

liar methods of war, many of which are de- 
scribed by Cesar, sufficiently prove them to have 
been, at this period, a brave, resolute and war- 
like nation. " The Britons themselves," accord- 
ing to Tacitus, " diligently performed the levy 
and tributes and the enjoined taxes of the empire, 
if injuries were absent : these they bore grievously, 
now subdued, that they should obey, not yet, 
that they should be slaves. Therefore, when 
the deified Julius, first of all the Romans, having 
entered Britain with an army, although he 
affrighted the inhabitants by a prosperous battle 
and may have obtained the coast, may be thought 
to have shewn it to posterity, not delivered it."* 
"The interior part of Britain," says Cesar, 
" was inhabited by those, whom born in the 
island itself they said to be deduced from me- 
mory ; the maritime part by those, who, for the 
sake of carrying on plunder and war, had passed 
over from the Belgs. ... Of all these, by far 
the most humane, were those who inhabited 
Kent : which country was all maritime nor dif- 
fered much from the Gallic custom,"!' " As to 
the rest," according to Tacitus, " those mortals 
who, in the beginning, cultivated Britain, 
whether natives or strangers, as among barba- 

* Life of Julius Agricola, 13. 
t Of the Gallic war, B. 5. 



KING ARTHUR. 5 

rians, being little known. The habits of their 
bodies [were] various, and from these argu- 
ments : for the red hair of those inhabiting 
Caledonia [and their] large limbs asserted a Ger- 
manick origin.* The swarthy countenances of 
the Silures and their hair for the most part curled 
and Spain placed opposite to them, made faith 
that the ancient Iberians had passed over and 
occupied these seats : the next to the Gauls are, 
also, like them : whether by the virtue of their 
origin enduring or whether by lands running in 
adverse [Britain], the state of the climate have 
given the habit to their bodies : nevertheless, to 
one estimating into the whole, it was credible 
that the Gauls occupied the neighbouring soil. 
You would discover their sacred rites by the 
persuasion of their superstitions : their speech 
being not much different, the same audacity in 
dangers called for and, when they came, the 
same terror in refusing them.f They appear, 

* These circumstances, however, in historians much more 
ancient than Tacitus, are, expressly, asserted to be the charac- 
teristics of the Gauls. 

t Life of Agricola, P. 11. The difficulty of ascertaining the 
origin of an ancient nation is, universally, acknowledged : the 
Romans, even, were ignorant of their own. It is, however, pe- 
culiarly, difficult to investigate whence the Britons, originally, 
came : was it from Gaul, where, there was a nation of Britons, 
placed upon the river Samara, now the Somme, in the province 



6 THE LIFE OF 

in Caesar's time, as was the case, indeed, down to 
a very late period, to have been governed by 

of Picardy, running between Abbeville and Saint-Yallery, up 
to Amiens. There is, certainly, a strong analogy between 
Gallia and Wallia, Gauls and Walls. This subject will afford 
discussion at some future period. How came they by the 
name of Britons, in such ancient times ? What is its etymology ? 
A curious and important object of disquisition. Why had the 
Britons, in the sixth century called their country Wallia, as 
it appears in the awdyl vraith of Taliesin (Myvyrian archai- 
ology of Wales, I, 95) ? They seem to have adopted, from the 
Romans, the fabulous idea of having come from Troy. In the 
Hanes Taliesin, Taliesin's history (Jbi, 19, 20) is the following 
stanza : 

" Mi afum yn Africa 

Cyn udeilad Roma 

Mi a ddoethym yma 

At wedillion Troia." 

(I have beeu in Africa 

Before Rome was built, 

I have come here 

To the remnants of Troy.) 

In another poem of Taliesin, already mentioned, Awdyl vraith, 
a principal class of metres (Ibi, 92, 94) is the subsequent 

" Och dduw, mor druan 
Y daw V ddarogan 
Drwy ddirvawr gwynvan 
I lin Troea." 
(O god 1 how wretched I'm become 
The prophecy concerns me much, 
Through lamentation infinite, 

The line of Troy.) 



KING ARTHUR. 7 

several petty kings or chieftains ; to one of 
whom, Cassivelaun, " whose borders/' he says, 
** from the maritime cities a river divided, which 

These extracts are translated as literally as possible. It 
seems, therefore, that the bard had imagined his countrymen, 
as the Romans pretended, to be Trojans and to have come, 
with Brute, into Britain, after the destruction of Troy; pos- 
sibly, he received his information from Virgil's Aeneis, with 
which, at least, Gildas was familiar, as he cites, in his 14th 
chapter, part of these two lines : 

" Non sic, aggeribus ruptis cum spumeus atnnis 
Exiit, eppositasque evicit gurgite moles." 

(L. 2, v. 496, 7.) 

Their descendants, the present Welsh, call themselves 
Cynmry or Gynmry, in Latin, Cumbri or Cambri ; a name, 
however, used neither by Gildas, Bede nor Nennius nor, in 
short, by any historian, before Geoffrey of Monmouth (except 
by Fabian Ethelwerd (P. 844), who, manifestly, means the in- 
habitants of Cumberland, which name, likewise, occurs in the 
Saxon chronicle (Eumbjia-lanb, p. 115) and, apparently, 
meaning bastards. (See Glos. LL. Wal. voce Cymmerjad.) 
William Owen, in his Welsh dictionary, explains " Cymro, 
s , TO . — pi, cymry (cy-bro) A Welshman. Cymry," he says, 
" is the universal appellation by which the Welsh call them- 
selves ; . . . and the name," lie asserts, " is, undoubtedly, the 
origin of the Cimbri and Cimmerii, in ancient authors :" The 
Cimbri and Cimmerii however, were, notoriously, two as dif- 
ferent people as it is possible for two people to be : the former, 
who were Germans, were never heard of before the 70th year 
before Christ ; whereas, the Cimmerii (who are mentioned by 
Homer, 907, and by Herodotus, 469, years before him) made 
war on Alyattes the second, king of Lydia, who began to 



8 THE LIFE OF 

was called the Thames, about eighty miles from 
the sea. To him, in former times, with the re- 
maining cities, the continental wars had passed 
between : but, the Britons, being thoroughly 
moved by our arrival, the whole had set him 
over the war and the government." He, like- 
wise mentions Mandrubatius, a chief of the Trino- 
bantes, now Londoners, who had fled to him, for 
protection, in Gaul, that he might avoid the fate 
of his father, Imanaentius whom Cassivelaun had 
put to death. In Kent, alone, it seems no less 
than four kings presided, Cingetorix, Caniilius, 
Taxigulus, and Segonax. Another of these petty 
princes is noticed by Florus: " Caesar," he says, 
" in his second expedition, pursuing the Britons, 
in the Caledonian woods, put, likewise, one of 
the kings of the Cavelani in chains."t Cassive- 

reign in the 619th year before Christ and reigned 57 years. 
The Saxons called them, H'alaj'jUJealaj-jllIeallar, (Wawls) 
tUealh, IDadij-cman, IDxlre, Uhh/c, UJylij-c (Welsh) 

UJealhaj - , foreigners, strangers or barbarians, for what reason 
cannot be ascertained ; and those of South- Wales, lUallejl- 
pente (Saxon chronicle and Lye's dictionary.) The Cumry, 
Taffy says, are Cimpri, Cimcrii, or Gomerii, from Gomcr of the 
olt testament, as hur is creat etymolochist ant font of an olt 
peticree. 

t Those people, though precisely so named, are supposed 
to have been the natives of Lincolnshire, Buckinghamshire, 
and some adjoining counties. 



KING ARTHUR. 

laun, in fine, on the loss of a great battle, sent 
ambassadors to sue for peace, which application, 
Caesar, stipulating a tribute and receiving hos- 
tages, appears to have complied with. He re- 
turned to Gaul and never after revisited Britain 
nor (excepting that " Caligula, being in Germany, 
did no more than receive the submission of Ad- 
minius, the son of Kinobelin, a British prince, 
who, being forced from his father, came over to 
him, with a small body of troops ; yet, as if the 
whole island had been surrendered to him, be 
sent bouncing letters to Rome upon it")* was 
any further attempt made till the reign of 
Claudius. 

* Suetonius, Caligula, c. 44. 



10 THE LIFE OF 

CHAP. II. 

Of Caradoc, a British king - . 

When (in the year of the vulgar aera 51) Osto- 
rius, the propraetor, fought a battle against the 
Britons, in which the latter were defeated. 
" This victory/ according to Tacitus, " was 
famous, and the wife and daughter of Caradoc 
(Caractacus) , [prince of the Silures, inhabitants 
of present South-Wales, "whom," the author 
says, " many perilous and many prosperous 
things, had exalted so high, that he far ex- 
celled the other generals of the Britons,"] his 
brethren, also, being received into surren- 
der. He himself (as, for the most part, unsafe 
things are adverse) when he had entreated the 
faith of Cartismandua, queen of the Brigantes, was 
chained and delivered to the victors, after the 
ninth year, when the war in Britain [was] be- 
gun : whence his fame carried into the islands 
and, spread about the nearest, was, likewise, 
celebrated through Italy, and they desired to see 
him, who had, so many years, disdained our 
riches. So that not, at Rome, truly, the name 



KING ARTHUR. 11 

of Caradoc was ignoble ; and Caesar, whilst his 
grace extolled [him], added glory to the con- 
quered. The people, moreover, being called, as 
to a famous spectacle. The praetorian cohorts 
stood in arms, in the field, which lay before the 
camp. Then the royal clients walking in state, 
trappings and torques and what things he had 
got in external wars, being brought over: by 
and by, his brethren and his wife and his 
daughter : lastly he himself being presented. 
The supplications of the rest were degenerate, 
out of fear : but not Caradoc, either with a de- 
jected look or asking mercy with words. When 
he stood up to the tribunal, he spoke in this 
manner : " If how much nobility and fortune 
was mine, so much moderation had been of pros- 
perous things, I had come into this city a friend 
rather than a captive nor disdained, to be born of 
famous ancestors, governing many nations, to 
receive a treaty of peace. My present lot, as 
much as it is dishonourable to me, so is it mag- 
nificent to thee : I have had horses, men, arms, 
riches j what wonder ; if I have lost these 
against my will ? Whether, if you [Romans] 
will govern all, does it follow, that all should 
receive slavery ? If, incontinently, being given 
up, I should be delivered ; neither my fortune 
nor thy glory, would grow famous and the pu- 



12 THE LIFE OF 

nishment of me will be followed by oblivion : 
but, if thou shouldst preserve me safe, I shall 
be an everlasting example of thy clemency." At 
these [words] Caesar granted pardon both to 
himself and his wife and his brethren."* 

• Annals, B. xii, 36. It is, by no means probable that 
Caradoc actually delivered this speech, though he might have 
said, through an interpreter, something becoming his situation. 
This is only what Tacitus conceives he should or might have 
said. The practice seems to have been introduced by Livy, and 
ended, perchance, in Geoffrey of Monmouth. 



KING ARTHUR. 13 



CHAP. III. 



Of Venusius, Paulinus Suetonius, Prasutagus, 
and Boudicea. 

After Caradoc was taken, Venusius, chief in 
the science of warfare, and in the city of the 
Iugantes, and being long faithful, was defended 
by the Roman arms, when he held queen Cartis- 
mandua in matrimony, discord having, by and 
by, risen and, straightway, also, against the 
Romans, he had taken [up] hostilities : but, at 
first, it was, only, contested among themselves, 
and Cartismandua, by wily arts, cut off the bro- 
ther and near of kin of Venusius.* 

When Paullinus Suetonius obtained the Britons, 
he made ready to fall upon the isle of Mona,\ 
strong in inhabitants and a receptacle of refugees, 
and built ships, with a plain bottom, against a 
narrow and uncertain shore. So the foot-soldiers, 
following the horsemen in the ford or higher, 
among the waters, swimming after the horses, 

* Taciti Annates. L. 12, § 40. 

t Man, in British, now Anglesey, or the Engles-islc, so namcil 
by the Saxons. 



14 THE LIFE OF 

passed over. On the opposite shore stood the 
army in battalia, close with arms and men, the 
women, running, to and fro, in the manner of 
furies, their vests being funereal, their hair dis- 
heveled, bore torches and the druids, round 
about, their hands being lifted up, pouring-out 
direful prayers, astonished the soldiers with the 
novelty of the sight, that, as if, with members 
sticking together, they would offer an immove- 
able body to wounds. Afterward, at the exhort- 
ations of the general and they themselves stimu- 
lating each other, lest they should fear a female 
and fanatic crew, they brought up the ensigns 
and threw down those opposing and involved 
them in their own fire. Afterward, a guard 
being set over the vanquished and the groves, 
sacred to their cruel superstitions, being cut 
down : for they held it lawful to worship [upon] 
the altars with captive blood and consult their 
gods with the entrails of men. Suetonius acting 
these things a sudden revolt of the province was 
announced.* 

Prasutagus, king of the Icenians, famous by 
long opulence, had inscribed Caesar and his two 
daughters his heir, thinking, by such obsequious- 
ness, his kingdom, and, likewise, his household,, 

* Tuciti Annates, L. 14, § 29. 



KING ARTHUR. 15 

to be far from injury j which turned out the 
contrary : insomuch that, the kingdom by cen- 
turions, the houses by slaves, were wasted, like 
as those taken by force. Now, for the first time, 
his wife, Boudicea,* was 'afflicted' with scourges 
and his daughters were violated and whosoever 
were the principal of the Icenians, as if they had 
received the whole region for a gift, they were 
stripped of their ancient possessions and their 
relations were held among the slaves of the king. 
Already (in the 61& year of the vulgar sera) [to] 
Suetonius, the fourteenth legion, with their stan- 
dard-bearers and the soldiers of the twentieth 
legion and the auxiliaries out of the nearest, 
were, almost, sent ten thousand armed men : 
but the forces of the Britons, everywhere, by 
battalions and troops, rejoiced, exceedingly, how 
great a multitude, nowhere else and with a mind 
so savage, that their wives, likewise, they drew 
with them, as witnesses of their victory, and put 
them in waggons, which they had set upon the 
outermost place of the field. Boudicea, carrying 
her daughters, before her, in a chariot, as she 
approached to every nation, testified, " It to be 
usual, indeed, for the Britons to wage war : but 

* Otherwise, Boodicia (Tacitus, elsewhere) ; Voadica (Vitu 
Jgricolae) ; £«*£«*<*, (Bunduica), Dion. 



16 THE LIFE OF 

then not, as being sprung from such great ances- 
tors, having lost a kingdom and riches ; but, 
only, as one out of the common people, having 
lost her liberty, to revenge her body, wasted by 
stripes, the chastity of her daughters violated : 
that the lusts of the Romans had proceeded so 
far, that not bodies nor, even, old-age or vir- 
ginity unpolluted, they should leave. Neverthe- 
less, that the gods of just vengeance were pre- 
sent : that a legion had fallen, which had dared 
the battle :* that the rest were hidden in their 
camps or were looking about flight. Not so 
much as the noise and clamour of so many thou- 
sands, much less their assaults and hands would 
they endure. If they would consider with them- 
selves the forces of armed men, if the causes of 
war, it behoved to conquer or fall, in that battle. 
That is destined to a woman : let the men live 
and be slaves ! " Suetonius, truly, did not keep 
silence in so great a danger : who, although he 
confided in valour, he, nevertheless, mingled 
exhortations and prayers. . . Such ardour followed 
the words of the general, and so much did the 
soldier, old and with much experience of battles, 
bestir himself, to the flinging of piles, that the 

* At " The Colony," as the Romans called it, otherwise 
CamoloJunum, now Colchester : it resembled Chelsea-hospital, 
in so far, as it was the residence of the invalids of the legions. 



KING ARTHUR. 17 

event was certain, should Suetonius give the sign 
of battle and., in the first place, the legion, with 
steadfast pace and retaining the straits of the 
place for a defence, broken forth as a wedge, 
after the enemy creeping along nearer had ex- 
hausted his darts with a certain throw. The 
same attacks of the auxiliaries and the horsemen, 
spears being outstretched, broke through the 
line, which was opposed and strong. The rest 
offered their backs, in difficult flight, because, 
their waggons laid about, barred the passages 
and the soldiers did not restrain, truly, the 
slaughter of the women, and the cattle, pierced 
with darts, had increased the heap of bodies. 
Illustrious praise and equal to ancient victories 
was obtained in that day : forasmuch as, there 
were those who reported, little less than 80,000 
of Britons to have been slain 5 almost, 400 of 
soldiers being killed, nor much more wounded. 
Doudicea ended her life by poison.* 

* Taciti Annales, L. 14, § 25. Dio, however, gives a dif- 
ferent account of this British virago : " For the most part, Bun- 
duica, a British woman, sprung from a royal race, persuaded 
those [Britons] that they should, openly, carry on a war with 
the Romans; she who, not only, presided over them with great 
dignity, but, likewise, conducted every war ; nourishing 
greater spirits than became a woman : for the army being 
assembled, to 1,20,000 of men, she mounted upon a tribunal, 
made of moorish turves, in the Roman manner : a woman with 



18 THE LIFE OF 

a very large body, a fierce look, a very sour face, a rough 
voice, who let her very thick hair and the same very yellow,* 
reach down to her buttocks. She carried, also, a large gold 
torques and wore a robe covered over with different colours and 
bound hard to her bosom, to which she had overcast a thick 
cloak, connected with the help of a brooch : which habit she, 
not only, at that time and at others, always, used, but with a 
spear, likewise, taken into her hands, with which she amazed 
all present, she spoke after this manner : " Truly," &c. [The 
speech is too long to recite, and may not be genuine.] When 
she had said these words, she sent a hare out of her bosom, in 
order to an omen being taken: which, afterward, ran luckily ; 
the whole multitude, with joyful minds, shouted together. 
Then Bunduica, with her hand raised to heaven, I thank thee, 
said, Adraste and a woman myself, invoke thee a woman not 
reigning over Egyptian porters, as Nitocrisi not over Assy- 
rian merchants, as Semiramis (for these we have received, 
already from the Romans) nor, again, over the Romans them- 
selves, as, a little before, Messalina, afterward, Agrippina, now 
Nero, who, being called by the name of a man, is in fact, a 
woman : that which I have been able to understand of him, 
that he sings with voice and harp and that he is dressed like 
women : but am set over men, Britons, who have learned, not 
to till fields nor to be mechanics, but to wage wars, in the best 
manner : who, as all other things, so they esteem their children 
and wives to be common among themselves and, therefore, also, 
reigning over these women, who exercise the same valour with 
their husbands. When, therefore, I may obtain a kingdom 
among such kind of men and women, I pour out my prayers to 

* Hentzner says of our Queen Elizabeth, who seems, in 
more instances than one, to have resembled the British Bun- 
duica, " she wore false hair and that red." 

t A celebrated queen of Babylon, mentioned by Herodotus. 



KING ARTHUR. 19 

thee and intreat from thee victory, health, liberty, against 
injurious, dishonest, insatiable and wicked men : if such beings 
are to be called men, who are washed in hot water, eating 
meats, sumptuously prepared, drinking pure wine, besmeared 
with ointments, lying softly, coupling with boys and those past 
their date, and serving a harper, indeed, a bad one. Not to 
me, I beseech, not to you, for the remaining time, let this 
Neronia or Domitia to govern ; singing, she should rule the 
Roman people : for he is worthy who would serve a woman of 
this kind, whose tyranny so long a space of time, already, he 
should sustain. Thou, truly, lady, I entreat alone, wouldst 
rule over us. (Cassii Dionis Historiu Romana, Ham. 1752, 
folio II, 1003.) 

Bunduica, having destroyed two cities of the Romans, ap- 
pointed toward the captives a most execrable punishment, 
" it truly was very cruel and very barbarous, because they 
suspended the most noble and most honourable women naked 
and sewed their paps cutoff to their own mouths, that they 
might seem to eat them and, afterward, transfixed those very 
women, with very sharp stakes, through the whole body, ac- 
cording to its length, arid did all these things, performing, 
at once, the ceremonies of their religion and feasting and bear- 
ing themselves, lasciviously, as well in their other temples as, 
especially, in the grove of Andate : for so they called Victory 
and worshipped her, most earnestly." (Ibi, 1008.) Bunduica 
was extinguished by disease and many, grievously, bewailed 
her and buried her, magnificently, (ftj, 1011.) 



20 THE LIFE OF 

CHAP. IV. 

Of Agricola and Calgac. 

In the 78th year of the vulgar sera luliiis Agri* 
cola arrived in Britain : in 80, he penetrated to the 
firth of Forth: in 82, having passed over [the firth] 
in the first ship, he vanquished nations, unknown 
at that time, in frequent, at once and prosperous 
battles : in 84, he came to the Grampian-mount,* 
which now the enemies had sitten upon : for 
the Britons, nothing broken by the event of the 
former fight, and expecting revenge or slavery. 
Forthwith, more than thirty thousand of armed 
men were beheld and, hitherto, flowed in all the 
youth and with whom the raw and green age, 
famous in war and every one bearing his honours : 
when, among many generals, one excelling in 
valour and race, by name Calgac, who, to the 
multitude, demanding battle, delivered a speech. 
They received the oration cheerful and with 
a song of barbarous manner and shouting and 

* A hill in Buclian, now called Mormound. 



KING ARTHUR. 21 

dissonant clamours. Agricola having spoken ; 
immediately, a running to arms. The dreadful 
battle commenced, which is unnecessary to de- 
scribe here j suffice it to say, the Britons were 
defeated, with the slaughter of ten thousand j of 
the Romans no more than three hundred and 
forty fell. The Britons, wandering and with the 
mixed wailing of men and women, to draw the 
wounded, to call the entire, to desert their 
houses and through anger, of their own accord, 
to set them on fire : to choose lurking places 
and, straightway leave them, and it appeared, 
sufficiently, some to have been cruel toward 
their wives and children, as much as they com- 
passionated them. The next day opened the 
face of victory more widely : everywhere a vast 
silence, secret hills, houses smoking afar off, no 
one meeting the spies : by whom, into every part 
dismissed, where, uncertain vestiges of flight nor 
any where found the enemies to be gathered 
round.* Thus Tacitus. 

* Rolt, the historian, observes, that (in 1746) " the Duke 
of Cumberland issued a proclamation for disarming such of 
the clans as refused to surrender themselves ; a camp was 
established at Fort-Augustus, whence several detachments 
were sent to ruin and depopulate the rebellious country ; 
where the devastation was so great, that, for the space of fifty 
miles, neither house, man, nor beast was to be seen ; which wui 



22 THE LIFE OF 

For some centuries after this, the history of 
Britain is very obscure. It was, in fact, a Roman 
province and, generally, speaking, perfectly tame 
and submissive* If, however, we may believe 
two, comparatively, late historians, Dio, that is, 
and Herodian, the Britons were not essentially 
improved, in their dress or manners, by their 
intercourse with the accomplished masters of 
the world, who had strong garrisons in every 
part of the island : some of the generals, occa- 
sionally, usurping the purple. 

the entire subjugation of this fierce and intractable people, 
whom neither the Romans nor Saxons could reduce, and who 
had often bid defiance to their native kings." Conduct of the 
Powers of Europe, IV, 212.) [Every man of taste remembers 
and admires (and it was originally the author's intention to 
insert) the beautiful and pathetic lines of Dr. Smollett on this 
disgraceful proceeding, beginning, 

" Mourn, hapless Caledonia, mourn." Ed.] 

* Jove fix'd it certain, that whatever day 

Makes man a slave, takes half his worth away. 
Pope's Homer. 



KING ARTHUR. 23 



CHAP. V. 

Of the Britons, Picts, and Scots. 

About the year of the vulgar sera, 360, the 
Britons began to be harassed by two barbarous 
nations, from the north and west, which, like 
devouring locusts, swarmed over the island and 
extended their depredations from beyond the 
Scotish sea or firth of Forth, up even to the 
gates of London. These savages were denomi- 
nated (whether by themselves or their enemies 
is uncertain) Picts and Scots ; they, formerly, 
had established themselves, for some indefinite 
time, in the north of Caledon or modern Scotland ; 
the Scots in Ireland, whence they came over in 
swarms, to associate with their allies, in the 
plunder and devastation of the now enervated 
Britons ; but whence they had come, originally, 
is a fact which it has not been possible to ascer- 
tain. The Romans, after building for the Bri- 
tons or teaching themselves to build, walls for 
their protection : a precaution, by the way, they 
never either observed themselves or recom- 



24 THE LIFE OF 

mended to their subjected provinces, on any 
other occasion : well knowing that it is the 
heads, the hearts, the hands, of men, which are 
to defend them from their enemies, and not 
ditches or mounds.* This, however, being as 
it may, the Romans, in or about the year 404, f" 
either not esteeming the island capable or wor- 
thy, of defence or, possibly, judging their pre- 
sence and forces of greater importance to the 
state, in Gaul or Italy, withdrew, not, only, with 
their own legions, but with all the flower of the 
British youth, never ' after' to return ; and now 
the northern wolves, regarding neither walls 
nor ditches, leaped over the borders, in number- 
less herds, ravaging and devouring all before 
them. The wretched and enervate Britons, in 
the year 446, not able nor, even, willing, to help 
themselves, had recourse to their old masters ; 

* " The strength of a city," said Agesilaus, king of Sparta, 
" does not consist in its walls, but in the courage of the inha- 
bitants." The poet Alcteus was of the same mind : " Not 
stones nor timber," he says, " nor the art of builders are cities : 
but, wherever there are men, themselves how to preserve 
knowing, there are walls and cities." {Spartan manual, V. 7&.} 

[t The precise time, when the Roman legions finally aban- 
doned Britain, cannot be ascertained, as the chronology of the 
age is scanty and confused : according, however, to Bede, 
(L. I.e. 11. 12. 13.) that important event appears to have 
taken place a few years later. I'd.] 



KING ARTHUR. 25 

addressing them, as Gildas assures us, in a que- 
rulous and whining tone, to the following effect : 
" To Aetius, thrice consul, The groans of the 
Britons (and, after a few words complaining,) 
The barbarians drive us back to the sea ; the sea 
drives us back to the barbarians j between these 
arise two kinds of deaths, we are either killed 
or drowned."* They received, however, no 
assistance, and were left entirely to the mercy 
and discretion of their ferocious enemies. 

* C. 17. This epistle is interpolated in Polydore Virgil's 
edition, with a passage written by himself. 



THE LIFE OF 



CHAP. VI. 

Of Vortigern, king of Britain and the invitation, 
arrival and success of the Saxons. 

In the year of the vulgar aera 428 and long 
before, king Vortigern sat on the throne of Bri- 
tain or governed, at least, the southern, eastern 
and western parts of that kingdom or might, 
possibly, as had, formerly, been the case with 
the Britons and appears, even, to have been so 
at this period, as it, likewise, was, both then and 
long after with the Scots (as the Irish were then 
named), only, to have the predominant power 
or military command over his fellow- potentates. 
This monarch, [of whose] descent or title to the 
crown very little is delivered by writers of re- 
putation for their age and authenticity,* being, 

* Samuel, the scholiast or interpolator of Nennius, as cor- 
rected by Bertram, gives this computation : From Rufas and 
Rubellius unto Stilicho consul, there are ;>~ 1 years, and from 
Stilicho unto Valentinian, son of Placidia [Flavius Placidhu 
Valentinianus Cctsar, consul with Flavins Theodoshu Augustus, 
425] and the kingdom of Vbrtigem, J5 : and from the reign of 
Vortigern unto the discord of Guitolin and Ambrose, which is 



KING ARTHUR. 27 

completely harassed and overpowered by his 
barbarous and active enemies, determined, with 
the advice of his council, to call in the assistance 
of the Saxon pirates, who had now, at least, for 
a couple of centuries, infested, occasionally, the 
narrow seas and the coasts of Britain ; insomuch, 
that long before the Romans abandoned the 
island, they had a great officer, whose duty it 
was to protect both, under the title of comes lit- 
toris Saxonici per Britanniam (the count of the 
Saxon shore through Britain). The Britons, 
therefore, in 449, sent over ambassadors, who, 
in a stile even more pitiful than that they had, 
already, used toward the Romans, addressed the 
Saxons to this effect : " Most good Saxons, the 
wretched Britons, wearied with the frequent 
attacks of enemies and very much worn down, 
having heard the victories by you, magnificently, 

Gualop, that is, Catguoloph [the battle of Guoloph] Vortigem 
held the empire in Britain, Thcodosius and Valcntinianus (430) 
and, in the 24th year of his reign, the Saxons came into Bri- 
tain, Flavius Protogenes and Flavins Asturius or Turcius the 
second Asturius, being consuls, 449 and, from the year, in 
which the Saxons came into Britain and were taken up by 
Vortigem, unto Flavius Anicius Justinianut Augustus and Fla- 
vins Theodorus Paulinus, the last consul of the west, 85, [534], 
See Bertram's edition, p. 96, and the Fasti consulate?. 



28 THE LIFE OF 

achieved, have sent us to you, supplicating that 
you would not withhold from them your assist- 
ance. The land, broad and spacious and filled 
with a plenty of all things, they offer to yield to 
your dominion. Under the protection of the 
Romans, we have, hitherto, freely lived ; after 
the Romans, we are ignorant of better than you : 
therefore, we seek to fly under the wings of your 
valour : with your valour, with your arms, only, 
can we become superior to the enemy's and, 
whatever kind of service you impose upon us, 
we shall, willingly, sustain."* Complying with 
this request, as, they said, the staunch to the 
Britons and, always, alike ready in their neces- 
sity and advantage (having, no doubt, in their 
piratical expeditions, surveyed the advantages 
of the country with the eyes of a hawk), they 
came over, according to saint Gildas, " the 
Jeremiah of Britain," in three keels or long 
ships, and, after having performed their contract, 
by driving the old enemies out of the kingdom 
and received the solid reward of provinces and 
shires and counties, in the best and richest part 
of the island, they, forthwith, entered into an 
alliance with those identical enemies, whom 



* Witticliind, B. 1, c. 'J. This writer, everywhere ciill;- tin. 
Britons Brcwti. 



KING ARTHUR. 29 

they had so recently defeated., and turned their 
arms against their employers, whom, at length, 
they drove out of the country or confined to 
the motintainous and barren districts of Wales, 
Cornwall and, for some time, the adjoining 
shires. 



30 THE LIFE OF 



CHAP. VII. 



Of the arrival of Hengist, and Vortigern's mar- 
riage with Romwen his daughter. 

Hengist., a Saxon prince, forasmuch as he was 
a man learned and subtle and skilful, when he 
had looked upon the inactive king and upon his 
people, because they were without arms, a coun- 
cil being held, said to the British king, We 
are few, if thou wilt that we send to our coun- 
try, that we may invite soldiers of the soldiers 
of our country and the number may be the more 
ample to fight both for thee and for thy nation ; 
and the king this same [thing] allowed : who, 
incontinently, sent and the messengers passed 
over the Thetick valley,* who returned with 
seventeen keels and the soldiers chosen came in 
them and, in one keel, came a beautiful and verv 
graceful damsel : she was the daughter of Hen- 
gist. After the keels had come, Hengist made 
a feast to king Vortigern and to his soldiers and 

* That is, the German ocean, or part of what is now called 
the North-sea j from Thetys, the goddess of the waves, the 
pretended mother of Achilles. See Claudian passim. 



KING ARTHUR. 31 

to his interpreter, who was called Cerdicselmot* 
Hengist, therefore, ordered the damsel to minis- 
ter wine and ale to them, who were very much 
intoxicated and glutted.t Those drinking, Satan 
entered into the heart of Vortigern, that he loved 
her very much, and he requested her from her fa- 
ther by his interpreter and said every thing that, 
for her, thou canst request from me, thou shalt 
obtain, although the half of my kingdom, and 
Hengist, a council being held with his elders, who 

* This is Samuel's passage in the margin of some of the 
manuscripts, and appears, in the text of Bertram's edition, in a 
different character and between crotchets : " No Briton of the 
Britons knowing the Saxon tongue except this Briton : let him 
study, who reads, by what event it happened for this very 
man to understand the Saxon speech." Cerdic is, certainly, a 
Saxon name and the note is, singularly, shrewd for a Welshman. 

t That " this lady's name was Rowena, who came out of her 
chamber, bearing a golden bowl, full of wine : approaching, 
then more near to the king, with bended knees, said, Laverd 
King, wacht heil [r. plajronb cing. pees hael, Lord king, 
be of health] ! But he, her face being seen, admired her grace 
very much and grew hot : then interrogated his interpreter, 
what the damsel said and what he ought to answer : to whom 
the interpreter said, she called thee lord king and honoured 
[thee] by the word of salutation : what, however, thou oughtest 
to answer, is Brine heil [Dpinc hasl ! Drink health] ! Vor- 
tigern, then, answering Drinc heel, ordered her to drink and 
took the bowl from her own hand and kissed her and drank," 
seems to be the invention of Geoffrey of Monmouth (15. 6,c. 12.) 



32 THE LIFE OF 

had come with him from the island of Anglen,* 
asked from them what they should demand [of 
the king,] for the damsel, one counsel was to 
them all, .that they should demand the region 
which in their tongue is called Canthguar aland, 
but in our tongue Client (Kent) and he gave it 
to them, king Guorangon reigning in Kent and 
being ignorant that the kingdom of himself was 
delivered to the pagans and he himself alone into 
their power : too much sorrow disturbed him 
because his kingdom, secretly, treacherously and 
imprudently, was given to the foreigners and so 
was the damsel given to him into marriage and 
he slept with her and loved her very much.f 

* " Anglia -vetus sita est inter Saxones et Giotos, habens 
oppidum capitate, quod sermone Saxonico Sleswic nuncupatur, 
secundum verb Danos Haithaby." (Ethdwerdus, L. 1 : that is, 
Old England is situate between the Saxons and the Jutes, 
having a chief town, which, in the Saxon language is called 
Sleswick, but, according to the Danes, Haithaby.) 

t Nennius, C. 36. 



KING ARTHUR. 33 



CHAP. VHI. 

Of Hengist's advice to king Vortigern. 

He n g i s t said to the king, I am thy father and 
will be to thee a counsellor, and, ever be unwil- 
ling to neglect my counsel, because thou shalt 
not fear thyself to be overcome by one man nor 
by one nation ; that, my nation, is mighty. I 
shall invite, therefore, my son with his brother's 
son : those men are warriors, that may fight 
against the Scots and give thou, to them, the 
regions which are in the north, hard by the wall, 
which is called Gual, * and he ordered that he 
should invite them : whom he invited, also, 
Ochta and Abisa with forty keels. But they 
themselves, when they navigated about the Picts, 
wasted the Orkney islands t and came and oc- 

* Thus, in C. 19. — " murum et aggerem a mari usque ad 
mare, per latitudinem Britannia . . ,etvocalur Britannico ser- 
mone Gual." 

t Orchades msulas. The mare Fresicumas here or Frisicum 
litus, as Joceline hath it, in the life of saint Kentigern, is not, 
as Camden says, the firth [of Fortli], but the mare internum, of 
Richard, or Irish sea. 



34 THE LIFE OF 

cupied many regions and islands* beyond the 
Fresick sea, that is, that which is between us 
and the Scots, as far as to the confines of the 
Picts ; and Hengist, always invited the keels to 
himself, by little and little, so that they left the 
islands from which they came without inhabitant ; 
and when his people had increased both in va- 
lour and in multitude, they came to the above- 
said Cantuarian region.! 

In the year 455, Hengist and Horse fought 
with Vortigern, the king, in the place which was 
called JEglesford (now Ailsford, in Kent, at the 
bank of the river Medway) and his brother Horse 
was slain and, afterward, Hengist and his son, 
iEsc, enjoyed the kingdom. J 

In the year 457, Hengist and iEsc fought with 
the Britons, in the place which was called Crec- 
canford (now Crayford, in KentJ § and there slew 
four men (generals) and the Britons, afterward, 
departed from Kent and, with great fear, fled to 
London. 1 1 

In the year 465 Hengist and JEsc fought with 

* Probably meaning the Hebrides or JEbuda: corruptly He- 
brides, and, at present, the Western isles. 

t C. 37. 

} Of Kent, that is, Chro. Saxo. p. 13. 

§ " Crecanford, quod est Crickelade,'' Leland's Collectanea. 
I. 218. 

|| Chro. Saxo. ibi. 



KING ARTHUR. 35 

the Welsh, nigh Wyppedes-fleot (now Wipped- 
fleet in Kent) and there slew twelve aldermen, 
all Welsh ; one, also, of their own, a very noble 
man, whose name was Wipped, was there slain.* 
In the year 473, Hengist and i£sc fought with 
the Welsh, and took numberless spoils, and the 
Welsh fled from the Engles, as if there had been 
a fire.t 

* Chro. Saxo. ibi. 

t Ibi. He died 40 years after his arrival, in 489. See 
Henry of Huntingdon, p. 312. iEsc, his sou, reigned 34 years 
and, as he succeeded his father, must have died in 523. (Ibi 
and Chro. Sax. p. 14.) Many more battles were fought by the 
Saxons against the Britons : in the year 577, Cuthwin and 
Ceawlin fought against the Britons and slew three kings, Corn- 
mail and Condidan and Favinmail, in a place which is called 
Deorham and took three cities, Gloucester, Cirencester, and 
Bathancester (now Bath) ; In 607, Jithelfrid [king of the 
Northumbrians, a pagan] led his army to Leicester, and there 
killed numberless Britons. There, also, were slain two hun- 
dred monks [of the abbey of Bangor, living by the labour of 
their hands] who came thither to pray for the army of the 
Britons. Brocmail was called their general, who with fifty, 
more or less, thence escaped : In 710, Ina and Nun, his 
kinsman, fought with Gerent, King of the Britons (Saxo7i 
chronicle). 



36 THE LIFE OF 



CHAP. IX. 



What counsel the Britons gave to king Vortigern 
and the use he made of it. 

After these things, therefore, the king in- 
vited to himself all his great men, that he might 
ask from them, what he should do : but they 
said, Go thou into the most remote borders of 
thy kingdom, that thou mayest build a fortified 
tower, in which thou mayest defend thyself : 
because the people whom thou hast taken upon 
thee hate thee and, with treacherous fraud, will 
kill thee and the whole regions, which thou hast 
loved, will occupy, with thy whole people, after 
thy death. Afterward, truly, the king himself 
with his magicians, went forward, about to en- 
quire after the tower and wandered over many 
regions and many provinces and, by no means, 
finding that which they sought, lastly, they came 
to that region which is called Guent, and he, 
going round about, in the mountains of Herlri 
(that is, Craig-eriri, the rock of the eagles) by 
the natives, Snanditn, (Snowdon) in English, at 
length obtained, in one of the mountains, a place, 



KING ARTHUR. 37 

in which it was convenient to build a tower and 
the magicians said to him,, Make the tower in 
this place, because it will be most safe from the 
barbarous people for ever. He, therefore, ga- 
thered together artificers, that is, stone-cutters 
and they gathered together stones and wood : 
but, when every matter was gathered together, 
in one night it was entirely taken away and, 
for three times, he ordered it to be gathered 
together and it nowhere appeared.* Then he 
called to himself his magicians, and asked them, 
what was this cause of malice and why it should 
happen ? But they answered to him, saying, 
[unless] he could find a child without a father, 
that thou mayest have one who should be slain 
and the tower sprinkled with his blood, never shall 
it be built for ever.t Such a boy, being found, 
says to the king (after a quantity of lies, which 
are, likewise, in Geoffrey of Monmouth's British 
history) : Thou, therefore, go from this tower, 
because thou art not able to build it, and wander 
over many provinces, that thou mayest find a 
secure tower ; I, indeed, will remain here j and 
the king said to the youth, By what name art 
thou called ? He answered, I am called Am- 
brose % and the king said, Of what progeny 

* Samuel, CC. 39, 40. t Id. C. 40. 

X This boy is not intended for Arubrose-Merlin, according to 

G 



39 THE LIFE OF 

art thou risen ? but he replied : One of the con- 
suls of the Roman nation is my father. Then 
he gave to him the tower with all the provinces 
of that country (West Britain) and, he himself, 
with his magicians, came to the left (that is, 
North) of Britain and fled, as far as the region 
which is called Guennesi,* and built the city 
which is called by his name Cair- Guorthigirn 
[Guasmoric, near Lugubalia'] (Carlisle), he there 
built that city, which, in English is called Palm- 
chester.f 

the interpolator of the history of Nennius and, as it is in 
Geoffre}' of Monmouth, but, certainly, Ambrosias Aurelianus, 
(a great general arid, in process of time, king of Britain) as 
will appear by the sequel, and who Las been here confounded, 
with Merlin. 

* He withdrew into North Wales, in Latin, Venedotia, after- 
ward Gwent, at present in Monmouthshire, upon the Severn.sea. 
Gale. 

t Samuel, C. 43. 



KING ARTHUR, 



CHAP. X. 

Of the second arrival of saint German, and how 
Vortigern, flying to his tower, followed by the 
saint, was, in the night, burned, with his do- 
mestics. 

Saint German, truly, preached to Vortigern 
that he would make himself an alien from the 
illicit mixture of his own daughter, and convert 
himself to the lord : but he, as far as to the 
region which, from his name had received its 
name, that is to say, Guorthirnianum (Vortigern's 
land), miserably, fled, that he might lie with his 
women. Saint German, therefore, pursued him, 
with all the clergy of the Britons, and there re- 
mained forty days and as many nights and prayed 
upon a stone and there stood, by day and by 
night and, in the mean time, Vortigern, as far as 
Vortigern's tower, which he had built and im- 
posed upon his own name (that is, Din- Girtigim, 
Vortigern's tower) and in the region of the 
Dyveti (the inhabitants of West Wales, now 
Pembrokeshire,) near the river Teibi (now the 
Teivyor Tywy), ignominiously, departed. Saint 
g2 



40 THE LIFE OF 

German, however, followed him, in his usual 
manner, and there fasting, with all his clergy, 
for three days and as many nights, for good 
cause, remained ; in the fourth night, truly, the 
whole tower, about the hour of midnight, fell, 
on a sudden, by fire sent from heaven (that is, 
lightning) ; the celestial fire burning and Vorti- 
gern, with all his people who were with him 
and, with his own wives, ended his life,* [534.] 

* Samuel, C. 48. He adds : This is the end of Vortigern, 
as I found it in the book of the blessed German, others, how- 
ever, have said otherwise. " Forasmuch as all those of his 
family were hated for his crime, between potent and impotent, 
between slave and freeman, between monks and laics, between 
small and great, and he himself, -while, wandering, he went from 
place to place, finally, broke his heart and died, without praise." 
(C. 49). Others, however, have said, the earth to be opened, 
which swallowed him up, in the night, in which his tower was 
bumed about him, because any relics of those who were burned 
with him in the tower, were not found (C. 50). 



KING ARTHUR. 41 



CHAP. XL 

Of the three principal battles which Vortimer, 
the eldest son of king Vortigern, waged against 
the Saxons. 

1 h e first battle was upon the river Derwent j 
the second, upon the ford, which is called in the 
Saxons tongue Episford, but in that of the Britons 
Sathenegabail, and there fell Hors, with the son 
of Vortigern, whose name was Cantigern : the 
third battle, in the field near the stone of a mo- 
nument, which was placed upon the bank of the 
Gallic sea, and the barbarians were defeated and 
they themselves returned in flight unto their 
keels, entering into them in a womanish manner. 
But he, after a little interval of time, was dead, 
and, before his death, he adverted to his family, 
that they would place his sepulchre in the port, 
from which the Saxons went out upon the bank 
of the sea : " In which I commend to you, 
although, in another part, the port of Britain 
they hold and inhabit, yet in this land they shall 
not remain into eternity." They, however, con- 



42 THE LIFE OF 

temned his commandment and interred him in a 
place in which he had not reigned : for he was 
buried in Lincolnshire : but if they had observed 
his commandment, without doubt, by the prayers 
of saint German, they would have obtained what- 
soever they had asked. But the barbarians, in 
great numbers, returned ; when Vortigern was 
their friend on account of his wife [whom he 
loved, to that pass, that no man dared to fight 
against them, because they, courteously, cajoled 
the imprudent king, nevertheless, acting a fraud- 
ful purpose with a viper's heart*] and no man 
was able, courageously, to drive them out j be- 
cause not by their own valour they possessed 
Britain but by the divine will [and by reason of 
the very great sins of the Britons, god so per- 
mitting] : who can endeavour to resist against 
the will of god ; but as the lord wills, so he 
acts, and he himself governs and reigns. f 

Vortigern had three sons : the first, Vortimer : 
the second, Cantegirn : the third, Pascent, .... 
The fourth, Faust, who was born to him of his 
daughter, whom saint German baptized, nourished 
and taught, and built a large place upon the bank 
of the river which is called Renis, and consecrated 

• Samuel's interpolations, or marginal notes. 
t Nennitis, C. 45. 



KING ARTHUR. 43 

it to himself, and remains until this day,* and 
he had one daughter, who, as we have said, was 
the mother of saint Faustus the second 

* That is, when Nennius wrote his history, (of which this 
chapter is a genuine, part,) which was in or about the year 
858. There is nowhere to be found any precise date of Vor- 
tigern's death. The last certain event of his life is the death 
of his son, Vortimer, who died in 467, and whom he is supposed 
to have survived : but it seems probable that he was dead 
long before 500. Moses Williams, who, at the end of his 
edition of Humphrey Llwyd's " Brittannicm descriptionis com' 
mentariolum" (London, 1731, 4to.) inserted certain " JEra cam- 
brobritannictB," of no antiquity, in fact, or authority, admits the 
year 392 will not answer for that in which Vortigem died, 
though lie conjectures (from these fallacious <zrtz of which 
Geoffrey of Monmouth's fabulous history is manifestly the 
ground-work) that be was born in that year. 



44 THE LIFE OF 



CHAP. XII. 

Of Nazaleod. 

I he Britons, in fact, seem, about this period, 
to have been in no want of valorous and able 
commanders, for, beside Vortimer, Cantigern 
and Pascent, the three legitimate sons of king 
Vortigern, who were valiant leaders along with 
Ambrose Aurelian, we have an account, in the 
histories of Henry of Huntingdon, (archdeacon 
of that bishop from 1110 to 1155) corroborated 
by the authority of the Saxon chronicle and of 
Fabius Ethelwerd, of a great battle, between the 
Saxons and the Britons, in the year 508. I am 
about to write, says the former, the battle which 
Nazaleod (Natanleod or Nataleod), the chief 
king of the Britons, fought against Certic and 
Cinric, his son, in the sixtieth year of the arrival 
of the Engles. Nazaleod, verily, was a man of 
great name and great pride, from whom that 
region was called Nazaleoli (Natanleag, now 
Natley), which is now called Certichesford* 

* Now Cherford, as Carte thinks between Corfe-castlc and 
the jsea, in the isle of Turbcck {History of England, 1, 19»> 



KING ARTHUR. 45 

All the multitude of Britain, therefore, being 
gathered together, Certic and his son requested 
aid, in affairs of the highest consequence, from 
Esc, king of the Kentish and from Ella, the great 
king of the South-Saxons, and from Port and his 
sons,* who had lately arrived, and they appointed 
two wings for the battle, Certic governed the 
right and Cinric, his son, the left. The battle, 
therefore, being begun, king Nazaleod, seeing 
the right wing the more excellent, rushed upon 
it himself and all his forces, that this, which 
was the bravest, he might at first overthrow : 
the banners, therefore, being thrown to the 
ground and the battalion forced through, Certic 
betook himself to flight and a very great slaugh- 
ter was made of his battalion at the moment. 
The left wing, however, led by the son, seeing 
that the right wing of his father would be de- 
stroyed, rushed on the backs of the pursuers and 
the battle was, vehemently, aggravated and there 
fell king Nazaleod and his army took to flight 
and there were slain of them five thousand j to 
the rest, indeed, swiftness was protection. The 
Saxons, therefore enjoyed the prerogative of 
victory, and quiet was given to them for not 

There is, also, another place called Charford, in Hampshire, 
which is not less likely to be the true one. 

* This Port seems to have given his name to Portsmouth. 



46 THE LIFE OF 

many years., and auxiliaries came to them, brave 
and numerous* 

• 312. That Nazaleod, as Carte and others have pretended, 
was Ambrosias Aurelianus, under another name, is the grossest 
absurdity possible. This author has, already, mentioned, 
Ambrosius, and would scarcely have introduced him by a dif- 
ferent name, without explaining the reason. Beside, Nazaleod 
was slain in this battle [in] 508, and Ambrosius appears to 
have been living long afterward. 



KING ARTHUR. 47 



CHAP. XIII. 

Of Ambrose Aurelian. 

Some of the miserable remains of the Britons, 
caught, unawares, in the mountains, were slain 
by heaps : others, exhausted by famine, coming 
in, surrendered themselves to perpetual slavery ; 
if, by that mean, they could escape immediate 
butchery, which was the highest favour granted : 
others sought transmarine countries, with great 
howling, as it were, for their sea-cheer, in this 
manner, under the folds of the sails, — singing : 
Thou hast given us like sheep for eating, and scat- 
tered us among the gentiles:* others, in moun- 
tainous hills, menacing, craggy, walled, and 
very thick woods and marine rocks, constantly, 
reckoning their life to be in the most imminent 
peril, although, fearful, continued in the coun- 
try. The time, therefore, intervening a tittle, 
when the most cruel spoilers had retired home, 
the remains, strengthened by god (to whom the 
most miserable citizens fled for succour, on all 

• Psalm xliv. 11. 



48 THE LIFE OF 

sides, from divers places, as eagerly as bees from 
a storm approaching their hive), entreating him, 
all at once, with their whole heart and (as it is 
said) loading the skies with their numberless 
vows, lest they should be destroyed by universal 
slaughter, the leader being Ambrose-Aurelian, 
a modest man (who, peradventure, of the Roman 
nation, alone survived the collision of such a 
tempest, his relations, who wore the purple, 
being slain in the same, whose progeny, then, 
(in the author's time,) had greatly degenerated 
from the virtue of their ancestors), they took 
up strength, provoking the victors to battle, to 
whom, the lord assenting, the victory fell * 

In the seventh year of the arrival of the Saxons 
in Britain [454], was fought a battle at JEilles- 
treu :f in the beginning, therefore, Hors smote 
the battalion of Cantigern, with such vigour, 
that, in the manner of dust, being dispersed, it 
was overthrown, and slew the king's son, lying 
prostrate. Vortimer, however, his son, a man, 
truly, very stout, from moving oblique, broke 
the battalion of Hors, and Hors himself, the 
bravest of men, being killed, the remains of the 
cohort fled to Hengist, who, when he had en- 

* Gildas (Josselin's edition), C. 25. 

t jEgelsthorp, JEgclesford, Ailsford, in Kent, at die bank 
of the river Mcdway. This battle has been mentioned already. 



KING ARTHUR. 49 

countered the wedge of Ambrose, invincibly, 
then, therefore, the weight of the battle was 
turned upon Hengist, and, being straitened by 
the bravery of A'ortimer, when he had long per- 
severed, not without great loss of the Britons, 
being overcome, he, who had never before fled, 
fled now : but, in the following year, Vortimer, 
the flower of youths, perished by disease, with 
whom, both at once, the hope and victory of the 
Britons were extinct.* Vortigern reigned in 
Britain, and, while he continued to reign, was 
molested from the fear of Ambrose. f From the 
reign of Vortigern unto the discord of Guitolin 
and Ambrose were twelve years, which was 
Guuloppum, that is, Catguoloph.% Vortigern had 
three sons : the third, Pascent, who reigned in 
two regions, that is, Guelth and Vortigernianum, 
after the death of his father, giving his suffrage 
to Ambrose, who had been a great king among 
all the regions of Britain. § William of Malmes- 

* Henry of Huntingdon, P. 310. According, however, to 
the Saxon Chronicle, the year, in which this battle was fought, 
was 455, the British general, king Vortigern, the place, Egeles- 
ford : unless they have been different engagements. 

t Nennius, C. 28. 

t Idem (Samuel potius), C. 1, p. 96, 97, of Bertram's 
edition. 

§ Idem, C. 5, p. 131, 186, 198, of Bertram's edition. 
" Were not," asks Girald Barry, " the [Britons] brave in 



50 THE LIFE OF 

bury, indeed, says, that " Ambrose, the sole 
survivor of the Romans, after Vortigern, was 
monarch of the realm,"* 

war ... in the reign of Aurelius Ambrosius? whom, even," he 
adds, " Eutropius praises" (Anglia sacra, II, 448). In fact, 
however, Eutropius, ends his history in 364, 200 years before 
the aera of Ambrose ; whose Latin name, moreover, was Ambro- 
sius Aurelianus, not Aurelius Ambrosius, as lie was, first, deno- 
minated by Geoffrey of Monmouth ; so that the bishop of 
Saint-David's had swallowed the gross falsehood of the bishop 
of Saint-Asaph. John Lewis, a Welsh lawyer, whose folio 
" History of Great Britain" is replete with forgeries and false- 
hoods, takes this Ambrosius Aurelianus for S[ain]t Ambrose. 
According to John of Tynemouth, in the life of Dabricius, that 
place is Ambrose's-mount, which is now vulgarly called Stan- 
henges (Usher's Antiquitates, p. 241.) 

* B. 1, p. 9 (Frankfort edition, 1601, folio). However, it 
must be acknowledged that this respectable historian, who 
commences his work with the arrival of the Saxons, knew very 
little of the Britons, and that the little information he had was 
gleaned from a polluted manuscript of Nennius, which he ap- 
pears to have taken for the work of Gildat, though he names 
neither. 



KING ARTHUR. 51 



CHAP. XIV. 
Of Arthur's birth. 



Arthur was born at Padstow in Cornwall.* 

It seems impossible to deduce the descent of 
Arthur from any authentic source. At the end 
of David Williams's " History of Monmouth- 
shire" are two different pedigrees of this great 
monarch, formed partly from the British history 
and partly in the imagination of two Welshmen, 
who could not distinguish a lie from a fact. 
That such has been the character of a Cambrian 
genealogist is manifest from the life of saint 
Cadoc, a Welshman, extant in a Cotton manu- 
script of the thirteenth century (Vespasian, A. 
XIV, of which further notice will be taken) ; 
where his pedigree is thus accurately deduced : 
" Augustus Cesar genuit Octavianum, Octavianus 
genuit Tiberium, Tiberius genuit Gaium, Gaius 

* " Ex charta topographica Anglitz" (Leland's Collectanea, 
III, 27"). It will appear, hereafter, that he was king of both 
Cornwall and Devonshire ; though he might have possessed 
royal territories in Wales, it is not, however, known where. 



52 THE LIFE OF 

genuit Claudium, Claudius genuit Vespatianum," and 
so forth. This gross absurdity, however, is far 
exceeded, by the pedigree of Lhywarch-hen, in 
William Owen's edition of his " Heroic Elegies," 
p. vii. No wonder, therefore, that the phrase of 
" fole Briton" should have become proverbial 
in the thirteenth century.* Even the Bollandist 
editors of the " Acta Sanctorum" allude to this 
" familiar fatuity," as they call it, of the Welsh 
people, in feigning genealogies, and refer to 
Alford, at the year 508, number 8, in what 
manner it is said, that Arthur " drew his origin, 
by his mother, from that noble leader, Joseph of 
Arimathea, who buried the lord :" for they 
write, according to these learned Jesuits, that 
" Helianis, the nephew of Joseph, begat Joshua, 
Joshua begat Aminidab, Aminidab begat Cas- 
tellors, Castellors begat Mavael, Mavael begat 
Lambord, his son, who begat Igerna, of whom 
Uther-Pendragon begat the noble and famous 
Arthur." t Owen, in a later book, of which 
more will be said hereafter, asserts, without the 
slightest authority, that Arthur, was " the son 
of Meirig ab Tewdrig, and the twentieth in 
descent from Bran ab Llyn," and, in 501, " was 

* Peter Langtoft's Chronicle, as translated by Robert Man- 
ning, p. 167. 

t Maii, III, 587. 



KING ARTHUR. 53 

a chieftain of the Silurian Britons," and, in 517, 
" was elected, by the states of Britain, to sove- 
reign authority." 

Uther-Pendragon (in English, dragons-head), 
the reputed father of Arthur, may, possibly, have 
taken that surname from the form of his helmet 
or his crest. The most ancient author (if one 
may believe him to have actually been the com- 
poser of what has been ascribed to him) who 
appears to have made mention of this Uther, is 
Taliesin, surnamed Benbeirdh (the head or chief 
of the bardsj, who flourished (as they say) in 
the sixth century, and is, certainly, mentioned 
by Samuel, the interpolator of Nennius, [not] 
long after 858. He appears to have written the 
Marwnad or elegy, of Uther, which is found 
among manuscripts of some antiquity :* his 
name, however, does not occur in the poem 
itself, though that of Arthur does, which, cer- 
tainly, adds nothing to its credit, and has either 
been composed or interpolated after the appear- 
ance in 1139, of Geoffrey of Monmouths British 
history, before the publication whereof Arthur 
is never mentioned by any authority unless 
Samuel or some other interpolator of Nennius, if 

* " Marunad Ythyr, Uthuri epitaphium" [Uthers elegy]. 
(Lhuyd's Archaologiu Britannica, p. 264.) 

H 



54 THE LIFE OF 

they deserved to be so called.* The next writer, 
that seems to have noticed his name, without 
knowing it, is this Samuel or some other inter- 
polator, who says, " Artur, Latine translation, 
sonat ursum horribilem vel malleum ferreum, quo 
franguntur ' molas' leonum. Mabuter, Brittanice, 
filius horribilis, Latine; quoniam d pueritia sua 
crudelisfuit.^f Mob, however, is agreed to mean 
son, and, though ythr signify horrible, in one 
sense ; Ythyr, in another, is a proper name, 
synonymous with Uther ,• so that Mab- Uther 
seems to be the patronymic of Arthur, and though 
this might be his name of baptism, the other 
(Uthers-son) may have been a common method, 
as in fact it was and is to this day among the 
Welsh people to take the surname of ap Rhees, 
ap Richard, ap Hugh, and the like, in addition 
to the baptismal name, and, hence, the frequent 
corruptions of Preece, Prichard, Pugh, &c. Ap, 
or ab, is a contraction of Mob, a son, " and used," 
according to the dictionaries, " to serve, for- 
merly, between the sons and the fathers name, 

* Edward Williams, the bard and poet, does not think this 
elegy attributed to Taliesin, either genuine or ancient. 

t C. 61. (" Arthur," that is, " translated into Latin, sounds 
horrible bear or iron mallet, [by which are broken] the ' jaw- 
bones' of lions. Mab-uter, in British, is, in Latin, horrible son ; 
because from his birth lie was cruel." 



KING ARTHUR. 55 

instead of a surname, as Mac did, at a still ear- 
lier period ; thus, in the interpolations to Nen- 
nius, the pedigree of Pascent, the third son of 
Vortigern, king of Britain, and who reigned, 
after his father, for a few years, runs thus : 
" Theudubr Jilins Pascent, Mac Ap-guocan, Mac 
Moriud, Mac Guortheneu, Mac Guitaul, Mac Ap 
Glovi : * at Arthurs feast, (as described by Geof- 
frey of Monmouth) : " Beside the consuls came 
heroes of no less dignity, who are thus enume- 
rated : Map-Papo, Map-Coil, Mab-Eridur, Map- 
Hogoit, Map-Claut, Map-Cledauc, Mab-Bagan, 
Map-Goit, Map-Trunat, Map-Catel, Map-Ne- 
ton."f It must be admitted that Uther-Pen- 
dragon is not mentioned by any historian, J ex- 
cept Geoffrey ap Arthur, who does not, in fact, 
deserve the name of one : but it is, nevertheless , 
highly probable that Arthurs entire name was 
Arthur Mab-Uther. 

* C. 52. t B. 9, C. 12. 

i Even the Welsh " triads," which, frequently, mention 
Arthur, and are quoted by the Welsh as a very ancient autho- 
rity, though not believed to have been written earlier than 
the twelfth century, and, certainly, not before Geoffrey of 
Monmouth, are silent about such a name altogether" (Owens 
Cambrian biography, p. 17.) 



56 THE LIFE OF 



CHAP. XV. 

Of Arthurs name. 

" Ihe reader," according to Pinkerton, " need 
hardly be told that Arthur was merely a name 
given by the Welsh to Aurelius Ambrosius, their 
Roman defender against the Saxons :" to this 
he adds, " See Gildas, C. 25, Beda, I, 16 :"♦ 
where nothing like it can possibly be found. 
Neither Gildas nor Bede mentions Arthur nor 
even Aurelius Ambrosius, a name invented, for 
the first time, by Geoffrey of Monmouth, whom 
this writer is apt, as he has done upon this oc- 
casion, to consult, and cite some more respect- 
able historian. The name of the British king 
mentioned by Gildas and Bede is, in fact, Ambro- 
sius Aurelianus. If " Arthur was, merely, a 
name given by the Welsh" to Ambrosius Aurelianus 
(the other being a fictitious name), how then 
comes Geoffrey of Monmouth, so far from bring- 
ing them together, to relate the latter to be dead 

* Enquiry into the history of Scotland, I, T6, Note 9. 



KING ARTHUR. 57 

before the former was born ? " Art-uir, Mr. Pin- 
kerton says, signifies the chief or great man :" 
but no such etymology is to be discovered in the 
vocabulary of Lhuyd nor in the several dictiona- 
ries of Richards and Owen : this, therefore, is 
another absurdity, a greater, even, than that of 
Samuel, the interpolator of Nennius, who calls 
Arthur horrible bear, and, in fact, arth, certainly, 
means a bear, as ythr does horrible. How hap- 
pened it, at the same time, that so accomplished 
a scholar should be ignorant that Arthurs name, 
as expressed in Latin, actually occurs to the 
Roman satyrist, Juvenal, four centuries, at least, 
before Arthur was born : 

" Cedamus patria, vivant Arturius isthic, 
Et Catulus—."* 

He is, repeatedly, too, called Arthurius as well 
by Caradoc, as in the Cotton-manuscript of the 
lives of the Welsh Saints, (Vespasian, A. XIV) 
of the 13 th century, and, always Arturius, by 
Leland, throughout his Assertio Arturii." 

In a book written and published by William 
Owen, intitled "The Cambrian biography or his- 
torical notices of celebrated men among the 
ancient Britons [and modern Welsh] :" London, 
1803, the author says, under the name of 

•S. 3., «.29. 



58 THE LIFE OF 

ARTHUR, " It has been, generally, inferred 
that the great achievements of this hero created 
those illusory actions and scenes depicted in the 
Mabinogion or juvenilities, and some authors, with 
this phantom before their eyes, have denied ex- 
istence to the true Arthur of history." (p. 13.) 
Edward Lhuyd, indeed, in his catalogue of Bri- 
tish manuscripts,* mentions Mabinogi, as extant 
in the red book of Hergest, which he describes 
as a little book, containing certain fabulous 
petty histories of the very ancient British nobles, 
of which he had seen a copy, in four parts, from 
which he gives a few short extracts in Welsh 
and Latin. In Owens dictionary, he explains 
" Mabinogi [plural mabinogion, from mabinaivg, 
mabin, youthful, boyish, mab, a boy, a son], ju- 
venility j juvenile instruction ; the amusement 
of youth 5 the title of some ancient tales. Ma- 
binogi Jesu Grist, The infancy of Jesus Christ :" 
apparently, a childish book or book for children, 
like "Mother Goose's tales." So far, so good. 
He thus proceeds : " That there was a prince of 
this name, as Nennius represents,! who often led 
the Britons to battle against the Saxons, in the 
commencement of the sixth century [as Geoffrey 

* Archaeologia Britannica, Oxford, 1707, folio, p. t6t. 
t It is mentioned by Samuel, who appears to have inserted 
scholia or glossa, but never once by Nennius himself. 



KING ARTHUR. 59 

of Monmouth says], there ought not to be any 
doubt ; for he is mentioned by Llywarch,* Merd- 
din,f and Taliesin,% poets who were his 'con- 
temporaries' and is, often, recorded in the triads, 

" WHICH ABE DOCUMENTS OF UNDOUBTED CBE- 

dit" (lbi.J. As to the historical triads, no an- 
cient manuscript is to be found, and, most pro- 
bably, they are after Geoffrey of Monmouth and 
the Mab'mogi : they are, manifestly, too childish 
and ridiculous to be of any 'authority.' " Such," 
however, is " the outline of Arthurs portrait, as 
exhibited by the bards and the triads. The hero 
of that name, in the dramatic tales, called Mabi- 
nogion, is, totally, of different features and, in 

* Moses Williams, a Welshman and a scholar, positively, 
asserts, in a note on Humphrey Llwyds Commentariolum 
(P. 115) that " Yarthur [as in Llywarchs elegy upon Geraint 
ap Erbin] is not Arthur, but Iarddur ; peradventure, lard- 
dur ab Diwrig, who, very frequently, occurs in our manu- 
scripts." 

t Merlin the wild, the author of Afallenau or The apple- 
trees, which appears to have been interpolated, with the names 
of Medrawd, Arthur anrl Wenhwyfar, after the publication of 
the British history of Geoftnry of Monmouth, who, actually, 
wrote the life of this Merlin in Latin verse, 1147. 
.. t That Arthur, as victor at the battle of Badon, fought about 
512, is mentioned in a pretended elegiac poem of Taliesin of 
which there is no ' memorial' known to be extant either in 
print or manuscript, except a single stanza, inserted and trans- 
lated into Latin, by Sir John Prise. 



60 THE LIFE OF 

fact, altogether, another personage. The last is, 
then, a mythological character, of times so an- 
cient as to be far beyond the scope of history :" 
which, indeed, is no bad character of Welsh 
literature in general. " His attributes in the 
Mabinogion point him out as such : memorials of 
this being and of several others connected with 
him are, even, written in the heavens, for cer- 
tain constellations bear their names. Arthur is 
the Great-bear. Telyn Arthur or The harp of Arthur 
is, also, the British appellation for the constella- 
tion Lyra." This, to be sure, is a very curious 
anecdote of Welsh history : we read of David, 
king of the Jews, having a harp, but, this is the 
first time, we have heard of the harp of the 
" mythological" king Arthur, " There are some 
very extraordinary things to be found," adds this 
perspicacious and far-sighted Welshman, " con- 
cerning the mythological Arthur, in the Mabino- 
gion, and, particularly, in the story of Culhwch 
and Olwen, wherein we recognize adventures, 
which must have had a common origin with 
those of Hercules and the Argonautick voyage" 
(P. 15, 16) : this is, certainly, a singular instance 
of the modesty of this " maganaiz" Briton, as, it 
might have been, naturally, expected, that " the 
mythological Arthur" of the Mabinogion, carried 
up his descent many thousand years beyond Her- 



KING ARTHUR. 61 

cules or the Argonauts. This " common origin," 
however, has the coequal propensity to forgery 
and falsehood, which is found no less among the 
ancient Greeks than the coeval Welsh. The 
Arcturus or bear-ward, was never [called] the 
constellation of " The greater-bear." 



62 THE LIFE OF 



CHAP. XVI. 

Of the death of Howel. 

(jildas, a most holy man, was the contempo- 
rary of Arthur, king of the whole of Greater- 
Britain/* whom loving, he loved, whom he, al- 
ways, desired to obey. His twenty-three brothers, 
nevertheless, resisted the rebellious king afore- 
said, not willing to suffer his dominion j but 
frequently put him to flight, and expelled him 
from the forest and the battle. Howel, the elder, 
by birth, an assiduous warrior and most fa- 
mous knight, obeyed no king, not even Arthur. 
He afflicted him, he excited between both the 
greatest fury. He, very frequently, came from 
Scotland, f he kindled fires, he carried away 
spoils, with victory and praise : whereupon the 
king of universal Britain, hearing the magnani- 
mous youth to have done such things, and to do 

* This can only mean Wales or part of Wales, and is termed 
Greater Britain in opposition to Less or Little Britain. In the 
middle of the sixth century, the greater part of England was 
in the possession of the Saxons. 

t Cau or Kan, the father of these twenty -four brethren, was 
a petty king of Strath-Clyde. 



KING ARTHUR. 63 

others equal, pursued the most victorious and 
best of youth, so that the natives said and hoped 
he was about to be their king. In this hostile 
pursuit, however, and in a warlike meeting, in 
the Isle of Man,* he slew his enemy the plun- 
derer. After that slaughter, Arthur, the con- 
queror, came back, rejoicing, very greatly, that 
he had overcome his strongest enemy. t Gildas, 

* Myna, in the manuscript now citing. Mono, (Anglesey), 
erroneously by Caesar. Humphrey Llvvyd (in his Britanniae 
descriptions commentariolum," re-edited by Moses Williams, 
1731, 4to., p. 132) says " There yet remains a fragment of the 
ancient writer Gildas the Briton, ... in the library of Henry 
earl of Arundel, in which these words are had : " Britain hath 
three islands, Wight against Armorica : the second is situate in 
the navel of the sea, between Ireland and Britain : its name 
Eubonia, vulgarly Manaw." Bede calls it " The Menanian 
islands ; and Henry of Huntingdon," the Menavian island, and 
vulgarly called Man." (lb. p. 133). " Necprocul hinc est Mon- 
muthia, nobis Mynwy a concursu Mouse et Vagae dicta," 
(Ibi. p. 103.) Richard of Cirencester says it had been called 
Maenaeda, and was then called Manavia. 

t " There is yet extant," according to Sir John Prise, " a 
placg in North Wales, which still retains the memory of this 
slaughter, and has standing a huge stone, bearing the name of 
this Howel, as was the custom with the ancients to perpetuate 
tbe memory of such kind of things." (Defence, &c. p. 143.) 
If this be true, the slaughter did not happen in the Isle of Man, 
but in North-Wales, where the stone stands, and which in the 
sixth century, [may have] been called the Isle of Mynwy. Menay 
is a river in Anglesey. " Of Gildas," says Girald Barry, 



64 THE LIFE OF 

the historiographer of the Britons, ruling and 
preaching in the city of Ardmach [in Ireland], 
heard that his brother had been slain by Arthur. 
He grieved at the hearing, he wept with groans, 
that the dearest brother, for the dearest brother, 
prayed daily for the fraternal spirit. He prayed, 
moreover, for Arthur, the pursuer and slayer of 
his brother, fulfilling the apostolic command, 
which says, " Pray for those who persecute you 
and bless those that hate you." In the mean 
time, the most holy Gildas, the most venerable 
historiographer, came to Britain.* The arrival 

" who so bitterly inveighs against his own nation, the Britons 
say that on account of his brother, prince of Albany, whom king 
Arthur had killed, being offended, he wrote these things: whence 
also, many excellent books, which he had written, concerning 
the acts of Arthur, and in the praises of his nation, the death 
of his brother being heard, as they assert, he cast them all into 
the sea : by reason of which thing, you find nothing of so great 
a prince expressed in authentic writings." 

(Be illau, Wal. c. 27.) 

By " the king on the Clyde, with whom Arthur fought," 
Mr. Sharon Turner, who quotes " Usher, p. 676," seems to 
mean this Howel, at p. 677. Arthur, however, fought no king 
on the Clyde. 

•Pinkertou pretends that the saint and the historian were two 
different men." Gildas Albanius," he says, " or the saint, must 
be carefully distinguished from that Gildas, who wrote the 
book Deexcidio Britonum [Britannia:] : and who lived a cen- 
tury after ■ . . Caradoc of Llancarvon [Llancarvan] , the Welch 



KING ARTHUR. 65 

of Gildas the wise being heard by king Arthur, 
and the primates, abbots and bishops, of all Bri- 
tain, numberless individuals, out of the clergy 
and'people came together, that they]might appease 
Arthur for the abovesaid homicide." But, he, 
as he had at first done, the rumour of his brothers 
death being known, granted a pardon to the 
enemy requesting it : he gave him a kiss, and, 
with the gentlest mind, blessed him. This done, 
king Arthur, grieving and crying received, from 

[Welsh] historian wrote the life of St. Gildas, who was only re- 
markable for superior piety, and was no writer" (Enquiry, II, 
275). Yet this identical Caradoc, in his life of Saint Gil- 
das, here cited, expressly says, that teaching, at Glastonbury, 
lie, there wrote the history of the kings of Britain : " Ibi scrip- 
sit historias de regibus Britannie." (c. 20) ; and, repeatedly 
calls him " Brittonum historiographus" (c. 10); and " vene- 
rabilis historiographus" (c. 11.). A different life of this Saint, 
likewise, by an anonymous Monk of Ruys, frequently printed, 
though it disagree in many particulars with this of Caradoc, still 
preserves the identity of the historian and the saijit ; and even, 
gives an extract from his book : that Gildas the saint was a 
different person from the " British Jeremiah," as Gibbon calls 
him, and was no writer, are two ignorant assertions. Leland, 
Bale, Pits and Tanner, it is true, enumerate, among them, no 
less than seven Gildases, all distinguished with an appropriate 
epithet, as, Gildas A Ibanius, Gildas Badonicus, Gildas Bannocho- 
rensis, Gildas Cambrius, Gildas Hibernicus, Gildas Quartus 
and Gildas Sapiens; to which Dempster, adds Gildas Aldanus, 
and some one else, by way of joke, Gildas Fictitius. 



66 THE LIFE OF 

the bishops standing by, penance and made 
amends, in as much as he Avas able, till he ended 
his life."* 

* " Thus one man, in his time, plays many parts, 
His acts being seven ages ." 

It must be admitted, however, there, really, is a Gildas, who 
was none of these, and has no addition, but merely nourished 
in the ninth century :tnd left a work intitled, " Liber de com- 
pute (Cotton MSS. Vitellius, A. xii), with a prefatory epistle to 
Rabanus Maurus (inserted in Usher's " Veterum epistolarnm 
Hibernicarwn Sylloge :" Dub. 1632, 4to. p. 55). 

Gildas, beside, as we are informed by Leland, [appears] to 
have written books intitled Cambreidos (a metrical version, it is 
likely, of the British history of Geoffrey of Monmouth, who 
came into the world upward of five centuries after Gildas had 
gone out of it), " found 80 years and upward, before that time, 
in the Irish isles, and carried into Italy" {Collectanea, V, 57), 
" by one Blasius Birugus, in 1460," as Bale says. "Whether 
this be what is contained in the Cotton manuscript, (Julius 
D, xi.) ascribed bj- Bale, in whose hand it seems to have been, 
to a certain Gildas, who flourished, according to that fabulous 
writer, in 860 (" Teste Baleo") : it is, frequently, quoted by 
archbishop Usher, in his " Antiquitates," aud begins, 

" Primus ab Ytalia post patrisfata relegat." 

Ponticus Virunnius, who abridged Geoffreys British History, 
has some things which are not to be found, precisely in that. 
This is an extract : " Now the name of the damsel [Claudius's 
daughter, see that history, B. 4, c. 15.] was Gennissa, 
(although the poet Gildas calls her Invenissa, [Iuvenissa] .... 
and so a city was there made [by Claudius] . . . and to be 
composed histories and verses, and the poems Cumbres, of 



KING ARTHUR. 67 

which, also, in the fifth book of epigrams, Gildas, the famous 
British Poet, says : 

" Jucundcz toties cecini tibi carmina Cambres," 
and said, Sambuca thou rushest from Venus, now to thee Om- 
nidasituus becomes vile. Now sambuca is a triangular musical 
instrument ( they vulgarly called it a harp), whereof part is 
broad, and being concave is held to the breast, the fingers 
clatter upon the chords, in French they vulgarly call it Ban- 
dose [Q. Bandore, Mandore, F. Pan dore, Drayton's, Works,!!. 
736] ... so, also, Apollonius detracted Typanon for Tympanon, 
and Basamon for Balsomon, so Sabuca for Sambuca, and more- 
over it seems to insinuate as if he himself were the writer of the 
Cambrean song, and from the sphere of Venus the sweetness of 
melodj- to descend, or, even, Cambre that is Britain, as above, 
it is the British book, as are Csesars commentaries, or any Bri- 
tish book, which was read at Rome, for, always was Britain 
learned, even in Greek, or the Poem of Gildas is not to be 
doubted." Powells edition, 1585, L. 4, P. 28). Lily Gregory 
Gyrald has these words : " I remember me to have read Gildas 
a British Poet far more ancient (as 1 think) than these [I have, 
just mentioned], whose elegiack poem appeared to me to be 
written with wonderful facility nor therefore to be, wholly con- 
temned : which, afterward I, also found cited in a very ancient 
British history." (Opera, L. B. 1696, folio, II, 306.) By this 
" very ancient British history" he must either mean Geoffrey of 
Monmouth or Ponticus Virunnius: he is, certainly, deceived 
in imputing an elegiack poem to Gildas. Bale (amongst pal- 
pable falsehoods and forgeries) imputes to his Gildas Albanius, 
1, Versus vaticiniorum : '' O rabicm Britonum quos copia di« 
vit:" 2, De Sexto cognoscendo : " Ter tria lustra tenent quum." 
[MS. Bib. Bod. Digby, 186 : Tanner] : 3, Super eodem Sexto : 
" Cambria Carnewan Anglis :" 4. Versus Glide de Sexto rege 
Hibernie, MS. Bod. 2086, 2157. 



68 THE LIFE OF 

In one of the Cambridge manuscripts of Gildas, Cormac, 
who, in or about the 12th century, prefixed heads for the first 
twenty chapters, which have great merit and are mistaken by 
many, as being the genuine work of Gildas ; but that is, cer- 
tainly, not the case, as, in the same manuscript, his scholia or 
glosses run through the margin, but have not been printed (ex- 
cept a few extracts in Ushers Antiquities, the writer whereof 
thus challenges his right to what he had done, in the following 
epigram at the end : 

" Historiam Gildae Cormac sic perlege scriptam 
Doctoris digitis sensu, cultuque, redactam, 
Hoc tenues superat, multos carpitque superbos.'' 



KING ARTHUR. 69 



CHAP. XVII. 

Of the rape of Gwennimar, Arthurs queen. 

Glastonbury was besieged by Arthur, the 
tyrant, with a numberless multitude, on account 
of Guennemar, his wife, violated and ravished, 
by the unjust king Melvas, in Somersetshire, and 
there brought, on account of the refuge of the 
inviolate place, on account of the fortifications 
of reeds, and of a river, and of a marsh, for the 
sake of protection. The rebellious king had 
sought the queen for the compass of one year ; 
he heard, at length, that she was remaining in 
that place ; he moved the army of all Cornwall 
and Devonshire, and made ready for a battle 
against his enemies. This seen, the abbot of 
Glastonbury (Gildas, likewise, bearing him com- 
pany), entering between the armies, advised 
Melvas, his king, that he should, peaceably, 
restore the ravished queen. She, therefore, was 
restored, by whom she had been to be restored, 
through peace and benevolence. These things 
being transacted, the two kings, who came to 
the temple of saint Mary, to visit and to pray, 
I 



70 THE LIFE OF 

gave to the abbot many territories, the abbot 
confirming the beloved fraternity, for the peace 
had and for the benefits which they had made, 
and, more amply, those which they were about 
to make. Thence the two kings returned paci- 
fied, promising, reverently, to obey the most 
reverend abbot of Glastonbury, and never violate 
the most holy place nor, even, things subject to 
the principal placet 

* Vita sancti Gildae, manuscriptus regis, 13 B. VII. 



KING ARTHUR. 71 



CHAP. XVIII. 

Of the battles of Arthur. 

I n or about the year 457, the Saxons prevailed 
and increased, not a little, in Britain. Now, 
Hengist being dead,* Ochta, his son, went over, 
from the leftt part of Britain, to the kingdom of 
the Cantuarians, and from him are sprung the 
kings of that country. Arthur fought against 
them, in those days, that is to say, the Saxons 
with the kings of the Britons ; but he himself 
was the general of the wars, and in all the battles 
was conqueror.:}: The first battle was in the 
mouth of the river Glem.§ The second and third, 
and fourth and fifth [battle] upon another river, 

* He was the first Saxon king of Kent, and died in 488. 

t The left, it is said, means the north, because the priest, in 
saying mass, looks toward the east : though, it is believed to be, 
elsewhere, otherwise accounted for. 

% Samuels additions to Nennius's Historia Britonuru, C. 6U. 

§ The Cambridge manuscript used by Gale, under the name 
of GUdas, reads Clein, and, in the margin is Devonia [Devon- 
shire] and Cleni; but more rightly, he says Glem in Lincoln- 



72 THE LIFE OF 

which is called Duglas, which is in the region 
Linuis* The- sixth battle [was] upon the river 
which is called Bassas.f The seventh battle was 
in the wood of Caledon, that is, Catcoit Celidon. X 

shire, where is now Glemford? There is, however, a river 
Glen in Northumberland, which gives name to Glendale. Thus, 
in the old ballad of" The hontyng of the Chyviat ;" 

" Glendale glytteryde on their armor bright." 

* Linuis or Linnis, which appears to be Lancashire, in which 
is a river, called the Dowglas, which runs by Wigan and goes 
into the sea toward Latham, and is the only one of that name, 
it is believed, in the south of Britain (See Leland's Itinerary, 
V, 96). The etymon of Duglas, in Welsh, is du (dubh, black) 
and glas (blue or green). 

t Bassas.~] Where is now Boston. Gale, This, however, 
only shows his folly, Boston being a contraction of Saint-Bo- 
tulphs-town. Q. Basford, in Staffordshire. 

% Cath-coit.~\ In the margin of the Cambridge manuscript, 
Cornubiae [Cornwall] : but, in the Cotton one, also ascribed to 
Gildas, more rightly, (as Gale thinks,) in Lincolnshire : for this 
reason, as it seems : " On the other part at the Aufona [at this 
day the Nen or Welland] inhabited, with the Carnabii Bri- 
gantes and neighbours to the ocean, the Covtanni, ' is' a tract 
of ground overgrown with woods, which, like other woods of the 
Britons, was called Caledonia : of this, however, the historian 
Florus makes mention." (Richard of Cirencester, p. 26.) He 
has, likewise, two other Caledonian woods, one of which he 
places in Kent, the other in the most distant northern part of 
Scotland. The words of Florus, being said of Caesar : " Pur- 
suing the same Britons into the Caledonian woods he put one 
of the Cavelanian kings in chains." (B, 5, C. 10.) Who, how- 



KING ARTHUR. 73 

The eighth battle was in the castle Gunnion. The 
ninth battle was waged in the city Legion [which 
in British, is called Kaerleun~\* The tenth battle 
was waged on the shore of the river which is 
called Ribroit.f The eleventh battle was in the 
mount which is called Agned Cath-Regonion.% 
The twelfth battle was in the mount Badon, in 
which fell, in one day, eight [r. four] hundred 
and forty men, from one bout of Arthur, and no 
man overthrew them but himself alone. "§ 

ever, the Cavelani were, does not appear. Humphrey Llwyd 
imagines they may be '' The Cattivellani [KoSgutVldWet] of 
Dio, or the Cattieuchlani of Ptolemy, now Hertford and Buck- 
inham, shire mountaineers." (Com. p. 31.) 

* NowCaerleon-upon-Usk, or Caer-Legion, upon Dee, now 
West-Chester. 

t Trathtreveroit [Traithenrith or Rhydrhwyd,] Gildas manu- 
script, Arderit, Cotton manuscript and Prise and a Chronicon 
Walliae, manuscript, cited by Gale, probably Aerae Britan- 
nicce, adjincm. H. Llwyd, Commeiitariolum,1731, 4to. p. 142, 
Arderydd. , 

t In the margin of the Cotton Gildas: " in Sumerseteshire, 
quern nos Cath-bregion." [Cath or cdd, in Welsh, signifies 
battle.] " These battles, together enumerated, appear to be 
waged in the space of foity years and more, and although, all 
here seem to be attributed to Arthur, nevertheless, the}' appear 
to have been waged, under Vortigern, Ambrosius and others," 
says Gale, but without quoting the slightest authority. 

§ Historia Britonum, C. 63. The battle of Badon, accord- 
Jng to the computation of Archbishop Usher, was fought in the 



74 THE LIFE OF 

year 520, which date, with his usual weakness, he takes froita 
Matthew of Westminster. " The Badonick mount," upon the 
best, because the oldest authority, that of Gildas, " was near 
the mouth of the Severn ; and, therefore, cannot be Bans- 
downe or any hill over Bath, though it may be true that the 
British name of that city was Caer-Badon, yet Bath is, in no 
wise, near the mouth of the Severn : and, consequently, the 
situation of Mount Badon is not now known. The birth of 
Gildas happened in the year of this battle : but he does not 
give a precise date throughout his book. His words are these : 
" Et ex eo tempore [466] nunc civei, nunc hosies vincebant . . . 
usque ad annum obsessionis Badonici montis, qui prope Sabri- 
num ostium habetur, novissimaeque fermi defurciferis non mi- 
nimae stragis, quique quadragesimus quartus (ut novi oriter 
[alias orditur] annus, mense jam primo emenso, qui jam et 
meae nativitatis est." (Historia de eicidio Britannia, C. 26). 
In English tbus : " And from this time," that is " now the 
citizens, now the enemies conquered . . . until the year of the 
siege of the Badonick mount, which is near the Severn-mouth, 
and which was, almost of the last, not of the least overthrow of 
the villains, and which, as I know, begun the forty-fourth year 
the first [or, one] month being now elapsed, which, also, was 
[that] of my nativity." Bede, nearly in the same words, which 
he, certainly, however, misunderstood, supposes the 44th year, 
intended by Gildas, to be that of the arrival of the Saxons [449] ; 
and, in consequence of this erroneous computation, fixes the 
siege of the Badonick mount to the year 492. Archbishop 
Usher, after a quotation, in his usual manner, from Geoffrey of 
Monmouth,* proceeds as follows (though neither his Latin or 

* " If one were desired to mention a work capable of shewing 
that an authour may be vastly and profoundly learned, with- 
out possessing common judgment, Ushers Antiquitates Britan- 
nicarum Eccksiarum might be produced as an instance. Yet . . . 



KING ARTHUR. 75 

English is worth giving) : " As to what belongs to the time of 
the battle, Bede notes this overthrow of the Saxons to have been 
made about the fortieth and fourth year of their coming into 
Britain ; referring that number of years declared by Gildas to 
things before-hand ; whereas the time, in which those things 
were written by him, seems to have been regarded : forasmuch 
as if he had said, from the Badonick slaughter the fortieth and 
fourth year then to have begun to be numbered ; one month 
of that year, being, at that time elapsed : and himself to have 
known it from his age ; because, he himself had learned, from 
his parents, the year both of his own birth and of that victory 
to have been the same. Therefore, Matthew, the. florilegist, 
[who knew nothing of the matter] delivers this battle to have 
been made in the year of grace 520 : a British chronologer, 
also, [equally ignorant] giving his vote ; whom we have already 
shewn to have numbered from the Badonick battle [of which 
no man of any capacity has ever attempted the exact aera] to 
the fall of Arthur 22 years [Above, C. 12] : which being 
granted, both Gildas, in that year, to have been brought into 
light, and, in the year 564, by him written this epistle of his 
which we have, the corollary will be alike."* This authentic 
Welsh chronologer, whom the archbishop here refers to, is Sir 
John Prise, as firm a believer in Geoffrey of Monmouth, or his 
followers, as himself. In the pages of the Welsh knights book 
(121,122), quoted, by Usher, in the margin of his Antiquities, 
p. 216, are these words : " Item in chronicis Brytannice scriptis 

had his judgment equalled his learning and diligence, he would 
have been the most valuable antiquary that the Britisli islands 
ever produced." (Pinkerton's Enquiry into the History of 
Scotland, I, 106.) It is, certainly, a just character. Camden 
and Hearne, however, and many others, are little better, and 
Stukeley is below contempt. 

• Britan. Ecclesiarum Antiauitates, C. 13, P. 254. (1687, 
folio.) 



76 THE LIFE OF 

antiquissimis," palpable extracts from that writer, who fixes the 
fall of Arthur to the year 542, and, published by Moses Wil- 
liams, at the end of his edition of Humphrey Llwyds " Britan- 
nicae descriptionis comment ariolum," (London, 1731, 4to.), 
which he calls " Aeras Cambrobritannicce," which end in 1254, 
and are nothing but a, despicable farrago of no real antiquity, 
but servilely plagiarised, from the British history, so far as it 
goes. It is an unfounded assertion, that the Welsh either have 
or ever had an authentic history or chronology before the 
twelfth century. 

Doctor Smith, the learned editor of Bede, after giving the 
words of Gildas, " Quique quadragesimus, &c." adds, " which, 
being considered the number of years declared by Gildas, ap- 
pears to be rather the time of writing than the arrival of the 
Saxons : for Gildas, that is, to have written a year from the 
Bardonic fight, 44 the year to himself, in the first place was 
memorable, to whom, also, was that of his birth. If this be 
the true interpretation," he adds, " it will give another chrono- 
logy of this time."* This, no doubt, may be the true construc- 
tion, yet, as Gildas specifies neither the date of the battle, nor 
that of his birth, nor that of writing his querulous epistle, the 
former cannot be, possibly, ascertained to be 520, nor the 
latter 564. The year of his death is known, upon good autho- 
rity (that of the Ulster annals}, to be 570 ; so that, by com- 
puting, backward, to the battle of Badon, it is impossible to 
fix it higher than 526. Still neither Matthew of Westminster 
nor Sir John Prise or his modern Welsh chronicles, pilfered 
from that notorious fabrication Geoffrey of Monmouths " His- 
tory of Britain,'' will afford any decisive authority that 520 was 
the exact year ; as, in 570, Gildas would be only 50 years old 
at his death, which is highly improbable, as the monks and 

* Note ou Bedes Ecclesiastical History, B. l,c. 16. 



KING ARTHUR. 77 

hermits, by their habitual temperance, generally attained a 
very great age. 

If Taliessin were the contemporary of Arthur (and, certainly 
the name of this bard is mentioned, among others, in the addi- 
tions to Nennius's " History of the Britons,") and the poem 
supposed, to allude to this engagement be genuine, they would 
be decisive evidence in favour of Arthur and his victory at Ba- 
don-mount. The same bard mentions him again in the Marwnad 
Uthyr Pendragon (" Myrvyrian Archaiology of Wales," 1,72), 
but in no,other poem. In the same collection are three dialogues, 
between Arthur, Cai and Glewlwyd (I, 167) ; between Arthur 
and Gwenhwyvar (I, 175^) ; and between Arthur and Eliowlod 
(I, 1760 Lhuyd mentions a very ancient Welsh poem, in 
Jesus College, Oxford, intitled " Englynion yr eryr, a dialogue 
between Arthur and an eagle." (Archccologia, P. 256). Arthur 
is, likewise, repeatedly mentioned, in a dialogue " between 
Trystan and Gwalchmai (I, 178) ; and, with both Gwenhwy- 
far and Medrawd, in the Afallenau of Merlin the wild : if, that 
is, these poems can be proved of sufficient antiquity. He is not, 
however, according to Moses Williams, the Y Arthur who oc- 
curs in a poem of Lly warch-hen, as Sir John Prise, Lewis and 
William Owen, doubtless, by a corruption of some of the ma- 
nuscripts, as Williams, though a man of some learning, was yet 
a Welshman, and, certainly, would never have given up Ar- 
thur, if he had not been satisfied of the forgery or sophistica- 
tion of that name [y Arthur or i Arthur, for Yarthur] : his 
words being Yarthur non Arthurus est, seal Iardurus, Iarddur, 
forte Iarddur ab Diwrig, qui in nostris codicibus munuscriptis 
saepius occurrit."* Carte says that Llywarch mentions, in his 
poems, that he had been at the court of King Arthur : but 
nothing of that kiud is to be found in Owens edition, 

* Humfredi Llwyd, Britannicae descriptionis commentario- 
lum Accurante Mosc Gulielmio. Londhii, 1731," p. 115. 



78 THE LIFE OF 



CHAP. XIX. 

Of Arthurs dominions and royal palaces. 

1 he dominions of the British kings were, pro- 
bably, not very considerable. The best authority 
for the situation of Arthurs kingdom seems to be 
a passage in Caradocs life of Saint Gildas : when 
he had laid siege to Glastonbury, the castle or 
palace of Melvas, king of Somerset, who there 
detained Guennimar, his queen, " He thither 
moved the army of whole Cornwall and Devon- 
shire :"* which seems to denote that he had the 
power of those provinces, and, consequently, 
was king thereof. He might, however, be styled 
king, or a king of Britain, which appears to have 
been a usual custom with the British kings. He 
might, nevertheless, have had territories, in South 
Wales ; but, certainly, was not king of Gwent, 
which was possessed by Artkrius or Arthruis, ap- 
parently, a different name and of a distinct race 
or family, which is much better known than that 
of our Arthur, whom one may safely venture to 

* C. 22. 



KING ARTHUR. 79 

call king of Cornwall. The tradition, preserved 
by Leland, of his being born in Padstow, ap- 
pears, likewise, to afford some countenance to 
his being of that country ; of which there are 
other circumstances, by no means irrelative : 
more plausible, at least, than any thing concern- 
ing his life or actions, related in Geoffrey of 
Monmouths " History of Britain," or the Welsh 
legends, which are founded upon it ; as this 
people, it is certain, have not the life of a single 
saint, containing any anecdote, or, even, the 
name of Arthur, or any of his ancestors, des- 
cendants or other connections, which is not pos- 
terior to, and polluted by, that false and fabulous 
compilation ; except that of Saint Gildas, by Ca- 
radoc of Llancarvan, whom Geoffrey himself, 
along with William of Malmesbury and Henry 
of Huntingdon, orders " to be silent concerning 
the kings of the Britons [of which he had treated], 
since they had not that book of the British 
speech, which Walter [of Wallingford], arch- 
deacon of Oxford, brought out of Britany." 

With respect to Arthurs palace, ">They report 
that a certain man [named] Dihoc, a prince of 
Less-Britain, by incestuous fornication, polluted 
his own daughter and of her begot Saint Kyned : 
who, in a province, by name Goijr,* at one mile 

• Gwyr, Gower, or Gower-^and, a promontory upon die 



80 THE LIFE OF 

from the palace of Arthur, being brought to 
light, and in the island, which, in British, was 
called Ynis-Weryn, in Latin, Insula turbae [the 
isle of trouble], not without a miracle, for eigh- 
teen years, educated, in Glamorganshire, with 
Saints David, Theliau and Patern, connected by 
necessity, passed away the time of his remaining 
life : in that peninsula, doubtless, which is called 
Western-Gower, and, at the sea, serves a place, 
noted to this day by the name of Saint-Kenets- 
chapel."* A passage in the life of Saint Iltut 
expressly speaks of Arthurs palace, though it 
does not name it : " The magnificent knight, 
Bican, in the mean time, hearing the magnifi- 
cence of king Arthur, his cousin, desiring to 
visit the court of so great a conqueror, deserted 
that which we call Further-Britain, and came, 
sailing, where he saw the greatest abundance of 
knights. f There, likewise, being honorably 
received and rewarded to his warlike desire, his 

Severn-sea, now in Glamorganshire (formerly Morganwg), 
now called Worms-head. Within this territory were several 
old castles : as, for instance, Swinesey ('that is, in Saxon, the 
water of sea-hogs or porpoises ; now Swansea,) Guible, Penrise, 
and " Lochor-castle, 'standing' on the hither side of Lochor- 
river, in the lordship of Gower." (Lelands Collectanea, III, 94.) 

* Ushers Antiquities (from John of Tinmouth ), p. 275. 

t This must be false, as there were no knights in the sixth 
century. 



KING ARTHUR. 81 

desire of taking presents being fulfilled, he de- 
parted most grateful, from the royal court."* 

"The public report of those inhabiting the 
roots of the Camaletic mount, affirms, extols, 
sings the name of Arthur, the inhabitant, for- 
merly, of the castle, which same, in time past, 
being both magnificent and very strongly forti- 
fied, and in a very high prospect, where the 
mount rises up, was situate. Good gods ! how 
many [are] here of the most deep ditches ! How 
many are here of trenches of cast-out land ! Fi- 
nally, what precipices ! and that I may finish in 
few [words], it seems to me, truly, a miracle 
of both art and nature. "f 

" At segesest ubi Troiafuit, stabulantur in urbe, 
Etfossispecudes altis, valloque tumenti 
Tarus et astute posuere cubilia vulpes." 

" At the very south ende of the chirch of South 
Cadburi, standith Camallate, sumtyme a famose 
town or castelle, upon a very tone or hille won- 
derfully enstrengthenid of nature : to the which 

* Fo. 42, b. So that, it would seem, John of Tiniuouth was 
mistaken in attributing the journey to Iltut, the son of Bican, 
himself: See Usher, 252. 

t Lelands Collectanea, V. 28, 29. The three Latin lines 
are extracted from the Archithrenius of John Hanvil, of which 
there were two editions, but no printed copy is now known to 
exist. 



S2 THE LIFE OF 

be two enteringes up by [a] very stepe way : one 
by north-est, and another by south-est. The 
very roote of the hille wheron this forteres stode 
is more than a mile in cumpace. In the upper 
parte of the coppe of the hille be 4 ditches or 
trenches, and a balky waulle of yerth, betwixt 
every one of them. In the very toppe of the hille, 
above all the trenchis, is magna area or campus 
of a 20 acres or more by estimation, wher, yn 
dyverse places, men may se fundations and 
rudera of walles. There was much dusky blew 
stone that people of the villages therby hath 
caryid away. Much gold, sylver and coper of 
the Romaine coynes hath be found ther yn 
plouing : and lykewise in the feldes in the rootes 
of this hille, with many other antique thinges, 
and especial [ly] by este. The people can telle 
nothing ther, but that they have hard say that 
Arture much resortid to Camalat."* 

* Lelands Itinerary II, fo. 46, 47 ; p. 75, 76. In Mort 
d' Arthur we find " Camelot which is now called Winchester," 
distinct places in the old French romance of Lancelot. That 
Arthur, however, should be able to keep his court either at 
Winchester or in its neighbourhood is rather doubtful, as it is 
believed, that, during the most part of the sixth century, this 
country was in the actual possession of the Saxons. That he 
might have resided at Caer-went, in Monmouthshire, the ruins 
whereof are said to be still visible, which may, in later times, 
have been confounded with Caer-Wynt, now Winchester, is 
very possible. 



KING ARTHUR. 83 

" Arthures-hall [in the hundred of Trigg, 
Cornwall], a place so called, and, by tradition, 
held to be a place whereunto that famous king 
Arthure resorted. It is a square plot, about sixty 
foot long and thirty-five broad ; situate on a 
plain mountain, wrought some three feet into 
the ground, and, by reason of the depression of 
the place, there standeth a stang or pool of water, 
the place set about with fiat stones."* 

" Three dear times," according to the Welsh 
triads, [were] in the isle of Britain : one of them 
was when Medraut [Modred] came to the palace 
of [his uncle] Arthur, in Kelliwic, in Cornwall ; 
he left neither meat nor drink in the palace un- 
consumed, and pulled Gwenhuyfar [his queen], 
likewise, out of her royal throne, and hit her a 
blow. The second dear time was when Arthur 
came to the palace of Medraut j he left neither 
meat nor drink in the palace, nor, in the hun- 
dred." t This tripod of two feet may seem to 

• Nordens Description of Cornwall, p. 71 : an engraving of 
"Arthures-hall" is given in the same page ; and " Arthures- 
hall, a decayed place," occurs in his map. 

t These triads or threes (in Welsh, " Triodh ynys Prydain") 
are the name of a book, which, for its imputed antiquity, and 
authentic anecdotes, these people hold in very high esteem, 
alledging it, with their accustomed extravagance, to be not less 
than of one thousand years, or even " of the seventh century." 



84 THE LIFE OF 

have given rise to the following nursery- rhyme : 

" I went to Taffys house, 
Taffy was not at home, 

Taffy came to my house, 

And stole a marrow-bone."* 

(Letter from Lewis Morris, Cambrian Register, I. 350 ; and 
account of the life of Llywarch hen, prefixed to William Owens 
edition of his Heroick Elegies, &c. p. viii. note). It mentions, 
however, the ecclesiastical historian Bede, who died in 731, 
and Morgan M u y n - vaur > king of Glamorgan, whose death 
happened about 972, and savours too much, it must be con- 
fessed, of Geoffrey of Monmouths British history, to be, even, 
coeval with that book, which, as has been, elsewhere, proved, 
first appeared in the year 1 138. Of whatever age it may be, 
it contains a variety of the adventures of king Arthur, and 
other Welsh heroes, the names of his knights, courtiers, officers, 
wives, mistresses, and the like ; but, most probabty, nothing, 
except fable and romance. Robert Vaughan, of Hengwrt, who 
was born in 1592, and died in 1666, had proposed and pre- 
pared an edition of this book, in Welsh and English, with 
notes ; but it never appeared, nor is it certainly known what 
became of it, or where it is. The most ancient manuscript of 
these triades is the Lhyvr koch o Hergest, or red book of Her- 
gest, now in Jesus-college, Oxford, and the most modern, belike, 
in the Harleian library, number 4181, with a partial transla- 
tion by Hugh Thomas, and corrected, in many parts, by W. T. 
rWilliam Thomas ?] with additions of his own. 
* Gammer Gurtons garland. 



KING ARTHUR. 85 



CHAP. XX. 

Of the death of Arthur. 

LelanDj speaking of the Alan, a river in Corn- 
wall,, says, "By this ryvere Arture fowght his 
last feld, yn token whereof the people fynd there, 
yn plowyng, bones and harneys."* John, abbot 
of Burgh [Peterborough, that is, about the year 
1250], according to the same antiquary, had, in 
his annals, committed these [words] to his faith- 
ful papers : " King Arthur, about to die, hid 
himself, lest at such an event, his enemies should 
insult, and his friends, being confused, should be 
molested." f There seems, in fact, some truth in 
this anecdote ; since it does not appear to have 
been known, for 640 years, to any person in the 
kingdom, where his or his wifes body had been 
interred. William of Malmesbury, a Somerset- 
shire man, and very intimate, no doubt, at Glas- 
tonbury-abbey, who is supposed to have died in 
1143, expressly says that "the sepulchre of 
Arthur was never seen/' It would appear a most 

• Itinerary, VII, 114. t Collectanea, V, 44. 



86 THE LIFE OF 

extraordinary circumstance that the bodies of 
Arthur and his queen could have been interred 
in the public cemetery of Glastonbury-abbey, 
with all the usual processions, dirges and 
ceremonies of the abbot and monks, without 
which no interment was ever permitted in such 
a place, and that this should be unknown to 
those who actually assisted in and performed 
the ceremony.* 

* This may be thus accounted for : the abbot and monks of 
Glastonbury were a very different set from those of Henry the 
Seconds: being Britons or Welsh, it is probable, they kept no 
registers, or, if they had kept any, they might be destroyed by 
tbe Saxons, who, for some time were Pagans. The precise 
year of Arthurs death has never been, and, most likely, never 
will be ascertained. 



KING ARTHUR. 87 



CHAP. XXI. 

Of Noah, the son, and Walwen, the nephew, 
of Arthur. 

" Noah (Noe), the son of Arthur, fulfilling the 
commandment of the apostle, saying, " Give and 
it shall be given to you :" and, elsewhere, ' as' is 
said, "The hand extending [itself] shall not be 
indigent," gave, for the commerce of the celes- 
tial kingdom, in the first time, the land Penna- 
lun, with his territory, without any assessment 
to [any] earthly man, but only to god and the 
archbishop Dubricius and LandafF, founded in 
honour of Saint Peter ; and to all succeeding him 
and Llan-Teilo-inaur, upon the bank of the 
Tyvi, with his two territories, where Teliau, the 
pupil and disciple of saint Dubricius, frequents 5 * 
and the territories of the North-Welsh, t upon 
the bank of the river Tay : Noah putting his 
hand upon the four gospels, and commending, 
in the hand of the archbishop Dubricius, this 

* Teliau succeeded Dubricius, as archbishop, in 51U. It 
is not known how long the latter had continued in the tee. 
t Aquiltnsium. 



88 THE LIFE OF 

alms for ever, with all his refuge, and with all 
his liberty in field and in woods, in water and in 
pastures, under an everlasting curse, whosoever 
from that day in future,* should separate from 
the church of Landaff, the aforesaid lands, and 
with his dignity : Amen. Of the laicks, Noah 
is the only witness, with a numberless power of 
men. Of the clerks, truly, the archbishop Du- 
bricius, Arguistil, Ubelbui, Lovann, Lunabui, 
Conbran, Guorvan, Ethearn, Ludnou, Gurdocui, 
Guernabui. Be peace in their days, and abun- 
dance of things to those who shall confirm the 
gift : and to those who shall violate it [let] their 
sons be orphans and their wives widows."* 

* In anteu. 

t Monasticon Anglicanum, III, 190, (from the register of 
Landaff). This is the only instance which occurs, apparently in 
that register, with the name of Arthur, so spelled : the king of 
Gwent, son of Mouric, king of Morganwg, and father of Mor- 
cant, is, uniformly called Arthrius or Arthritis ; who appears a 
different personage, and was of a later age, being contempo- 
rary with Comegern or Comergwyn, bishop of Landaff, about 
600. If, therefore, the battle of Badon were actually fought 
tty king Arthur (who, at the same time, is not here called a 
king, nor appears, even, to be living at the time his son executed 
this grant, in the presence (amongst other witnesses) of the 
archbishop Dubricius, who died in 512 : so that he is near ten 
years too soon, as Arthritis is above twenty (oo late. Sir John 
Prise, who appears to have had the register of Landaff (now in 
Lichfield-cathedral, where it is called Saint Cfuuls book), only 
notices this grant from a certain Nde, son of Arthur (p. 187). 



KING ARTHUR. S9 

** In the province of Wales, which is called 
Ros, was found the grave of Walwen, who was. 
the not- degenerate nephew of Arthur out of his 
sister and reigned in that part of Britain, which 
hitherto is called Walwertha : a knight most 
famed in valour, but, from the brother and ne- 
phew of Hengist, being driven out of his king- 
dom, first compensating his exile by their great 
damage. Communicating, deservedly, to the 
praise of his uncle, that the fall of his tottering 
country he put off for many years. But the 
grave of Arthur was never seen, whence the 
antiquity of trivial songs fables him yet to come : 
as to the rest, the grave of the other, as I have 
said before, was found in the time of king Wil- 
liam [1086], upon the shore of the sea, fourteen 
feet long, where, by some, he is asserted to have 
been wounded by his enemies and cast out to sea,- 
by some he is said to have been killed by the 
citizens in a public feast. The knowledge of 
the truth, therefore, wavers in doubt, although 
neither of them has wanted to the defence of his 
fame."* 

* William of Malmsbury, B. 3, p. 1.15, (edition of Frank- 
fort, 1601, folio.) Geoffrey calls Walwen, Walganus, by 
others he is called Galganug, Gawain, Guwin or Wawin, the 
W and G being convertible in Welsh. The date, 1086, 
and the 21st year of the king, is in Lelands Collectanea, I, 
417 : but how he rarae by it does not appear. 



90 THE LIFE OF 



CHAP. XXII. 
Of Arthurs popularity. 



William Somerset, monk of Malmesbury, 
who appears to have died in the year 1143, has 
these words : [Vortimer] being extinct, the 
strength of the Britons withered away [and] 
their hopes, being impaired, flowed back, and 
now and then had [things] suddenly gone worse 
' if Ambrose, the sole svrvivor of the Romans 
who, after Vortigern, was monarch of the realm, 
had not weighed down the swelling barbarians, 
with the glorious acts of the warlike Arthur. 
This," he says, " is the Arthur of whom the 
elegiac songs of the Britons, at this very day, 
dote :* worthy, it is plain, whom not fallacious 
fables should have dreamed, but veracious his- 
tories should have spoken, forasmuch as he long 

* Be gcstis regum Anglorum, L. 1, C. 1, p. 9. " Brittonum 
nugtB :" these nugte or elegiac songs or poems, usually com- 
posed on the fall of great heroes, are elsewhere (L. 3, p, 115), 
called " antiquitas naeniarutn," a word of the same meaning, 
have not come down to us in a single instance. 



KING ARTHUR. 91 

sustained his falliug country and whetted the 
broken citizens to war.f 

" This country/' says Girald Barry, bishop of 
Saint-Davids, speaking of Wales, " except from 
the north, is shut up, on all sides, by lofty moun- 
tains, having on the west, the mountains of the 
cantred Bachan, on the south, the southern 
mountains, the principal of which is called Cadair 
Arthur, that is, Arthurs chair, on account of the 
twin points of the promontory, looking in the 
manner of a chair ; and forasmuch as the chair 
was situate in a high and arduous place, it was 
by vulgar nuncupation assigned to Arthur, the 
highest and greatest king of the Britons."* 

Sir John Prise gravely remarks, ' ' Not far from 
this lake [Lhyn-Tegyd, near Harlech] is a place 
called Caergay, which was the house of Gay, 
Arthurs foster-brother. "f 

* Ibi. It is highly probable, nevertheless, that this vene- 
rable monk, who commences his history with the Saxon kings, 
knew very little of the history of the Britons, and still less of 
king Arthur, and that all the information he had was derived 
from an apparently imperfect and interpolated copy ofNennius, 
whom, however, he never once names. What he says of " ve- 
racious histories" of Arthur, seems to prove that there was no 
such thing either in England or Wales. 

• Itinerarium Cambrite, L. 1, C. 2. 

t Desci-iption of Wales, (prefixed to Caradocs Historie of 
Cambria, by Lhoyd and Powell, 1584, 4to. b. I.) p. 9. 



92 THE LIFE OF 

" Artures hille is iii good Walsche miles 
south-west from Brekenok, and in the veri toppe 
of the hille is a faire welle spring. This hille of 
summe is countid the hiest hille of Wales, and in 
a veri clere day, a manne may see from hit a part 
of Malvern-hilles, and Glocestre, and Bristow, 
and part of Devenshir and Cornwale."* 

" In the isle of Anglesey are several cromlechs, 
which they there call Arthurs quoits." f 

" Withyn a myle of Perith, but in Westmer- 
land, is a ruine, as sum suppose of a castel, 
withyn a flite-shotte of Loder and as much of 
Emot water, stonding almost as a mediamnis be- 
twixt them. The ruine is of sum caullid the 
round-table, and of summe, Artures castel." X 

" On this ryver," says Froissart, mistaking the 
Tyne for the Esk, " standeth the towne and 
castell of Carlyel, the whiehesome tyme was kyng 
Arthurs, and held his courte there often-times."§ 

A parish, in Cumberland, is called by ' ' The 
name of Arthur -et or Arthurs -head :"|| 

" Etterby [a township, in the parish of Stan- 

• Lelands Itinerary, V. 70. 
t Wrights Loutkiuna, Part 3, Page 11. 
t Lelands Itinerary, VII, 52. 
§ English Translation, 1525, fol. vii, 6. 
|| History of Cumberland, by Nicolson and Burn, 1777, 4to= 
p. 471. 



KING ARTHUR. 93 

wix, in Eskdale-Avard, Cumberland], in old writ- 
ings is called Arthuri burgum [Arthurs-borough], 
which, seems to imply that it had been a consi- 
derable village. Some affirm, its name from 
Arthur, king of the Britons, who was in this 
country, about the year 550, pursuing his victo- 
ries over the Danes and Norwegians, [r. the 
Saxons, the " Danes and Norwegians" did not 
arrive in Britain for three centuries after the 
death of Arthur] " * 

Two old ballads, upon the subject of king 
Arthur, printed in bishop Percys Reliques of an- 
cient English poetry, suppose his residence at Car- 
lisle ; and one of them, in particular, says, 

" At Tearne-Wadling his castle stands." 

Thus, likewise, in an ancient Scotish metrical 
romance, of great merit, 

" In the tyrae of Arthur an aunter bytydde, 
By the Turne-Wathelan, as the boke telles, 
When he to Carlele and conquerour kydde, #c." 

"Tearne-Wadling," according to the inge- 
nious editor of the above-mentioned Reliques, and 
which, as he observes, is evidently the Turne 
Wathelan of the Scotish poem), "is the name 

• History of Cumberland, -p-. 454. 



94 THE LIFE OF 

of a small lake near Hesketh in Cumberland, on 
the road from Penrith to Carlisle. There is a 
tradition/' he adds, " that an old castle once 
stood near the lake, the remains of which were 
not long since visible :" Team or Tarn, in the 
dialect of that country, being still in use for a 
lake. The tradition is, that either the castle or 
a great city was swallowed up by the lake (which 
is now called Armanthwaite, from an estate it 
adjoins and belongs to, and may be still seen, 
under favourable circumstances, at its bottom. 

Walter de Percy, by a charter, in the time of 
Richard the first, confirms, amongst other tene- 
ments, to Roger de JBagot, all the land, which he 
had under the way that led to Werverton, which 
was called "Arthurs buttes," in the territory of 
Crathorne, in Cleveland.* 

To the east of Guisbrough, in Yorkshire, within 
sight from the road to Whitby, stands 

" Freebro's huge mount, immortal Arthurs lomb.V 

The memory of this illustrious monarch, on 
account of his heroick actions and celebrated 

• Original charter in the archives of Thomas Crathorne, of 
Crathorne, esquire. 

t Cleveland-prospect, by John Hall Stevenson, esquire, author 
of "The crazy tales," and several other poems of humour and 
excellence. 



KING ARTHUR. 95 

name, received distinguished honour, in being- 
placed in the heavens, as a constellation of him- 
self, and his war-chariot, amongst the star9. 
This appears from an ancient poem of the seventh 
century, composed by Aldhelm, abbot of Malmes- 
bury, afterward, bishop of Sherborne, who died 
on the 25th of May, in the year 709, and ob- 
tained the dignity of sainthood, being canonised, 
it is presumed, by the bishop of Rome. The 
verses are : 

DE ARTURO. 

Sydereis stipor turmis in vertice mundi, 
Essedafamoso gesto cognomine vulgi, 
In gyro volvens higher non vergo deorsum, 
Cetera ceu properant codorum lumina ponlo. 
Hoc ' dono ditor quoniam' sum proximus axi. 
' Ryphttis Scytm qui latis' montibus errat, 
Vergilias aquans numeris in urce polorum ; 
Cui pars inferior stygia letheaque palude 
Fertur ' inferni' /undo succumbere nigro,* 

(Of Arthur. 

With starry troops I am environed, in the pole of the world j 
I bear a war-chariot with a famous surname of the vulgar, 
Rolling in a circle, continually, I do not decline downward, 
As the other luminaries of the heavens hasten to the sea. 

• S. Aldhelmi Poetica nonnulla. . . Moguntiai, 1601, 12mo. 
(p. 63.) 



96 THE LIFE OF 

I am enrich 'd with this gift, forasmuch as I am next to the pole. 
He who wanders in the Ryphaean mountains of Scythia, 
Equaling, in numbers, the Seven-stars, in the top of the poles ; 
Whose lower part, in the Stygian ;.nd lethean marsh, 
Is reported to fall down in the black bottom of hell.) 

In Scotland, near Falkirk, hard by the Carron, 
was, anciently, a Roman building, of a round 
form, demolished by the Gothic owner of the 
ground on which it stood, one named Sir 
Michael Bruce, to repair a mill, which relic of 
antiquity bore the name of Arthur s-hof, or 
Arthurs-oon (or oven.) As a just judgment 
upon this sacrilegious act, the above mill was, 
soon after, swept away by the river. It is re- 
markable that Gawin Douglas, bishop of Dun- 
keld, a noted poet, has described this erection in 
the milky way : 

" Of every sterne the twynkling notis he, 
That in the stil hevin move cours we se, 
Arthurys-hufe and Hyades, betaiknyng rane, 
Syne Watling-strete, the Home and the Charle-wane."* 

It is as little known that Arthurs-Plough 
has likewise obtained immortality, by an ever- 

* The third booke o/Eneados, p. 85, Ralph Thoresby says, 
" Churl-wel is from ceopl, Agricola, and Charles-u-ain, the 
Ceonlr or countryman's wain, is from the same original." (To- 
pography of Leeds, 1715, folio, p. 268.) 



KING ARTHUR. 97 

lasting situation in the celestial sphere : for this 
interesting piece of information we are indebted 
to dan John Lydgate, monk of Bury, who takes 
occasion to observe : 

" But to shypmen that be discrete and wyse, 
That lyste their course prudently devyse, 
Upon the sea have suffysaunce ynoughe, 
To gye their passage by Arihour ys-ploughe."* 

* Troye-boke, C. 3. If one may believe William Owen, 
elsewhere alluded to, Arthurs-harp is " the British appel- 
lation for the constellation Lyra." 



THE LIFE OF 



CHAP. XXIII. 



Of the discovery, after many centuries, of the 
remains of king Arthur and his queen. 

A pakticular relation of the discovery of the 
bodies or hones of this monarch and his queen, 
between six and seven hundred years after the 
supposed and probable time of their deaths,* 
hath been, with due elaboration and prolixity, 
brought forth, by his countryman, Girald Barry, 
otherwise Giraldus Cambrensis,-\ who died bishop 
of Menevia or Saint-Davids, in 1229, which, 
however, it will not seem impertinent to give, 
at length, from his own Latin, as follows : 

" The memory of Arthur, the famous king of 
the Britons, is not to be suppressed, forasmuch, 
as of the excellent monastery of Glastonbury, of 
which he, also, was the patron, he had been, in 

* There is no certainty in the date of this event : nor can 
any credit be given to Geoffrey of Monmouth, or any of his 
followers. 

t Leland gives him the name of Sylvester Giraldus, in which 
he is followed by Camden and bishop Godwin ; for what rea- 
son or upon what authority cannot be ascertained. 



KING ARTHUR. 99 

his days, a principal benefactor and magnificent 
benefactor. Histories much extol him : for, be- 
fore all the churches of his realm, he most loved, 
and, before the rest, with far greater devotion 
promoted, the church of the holy mother of God, 
Mary, of Glastonbury : whence, when the war- 
like man was alive, in the fore part of his shield, 
he had caused to be painted the image of the 
blessed virgin j that, internally, he might, always 
have her, in the contest, before his eyes ; whose 
feet, also, when he was, in the moment of en- 
gagement, he had accustomed to kiss with the 
greatest devotion.* His body, however, which, 
as fantastic, in the end, and, as it were, by a 
spirit, translated to a great distance, neither to 
death obnoxious, fables have been feigned. In 
these our days, at Glastonbury, between two 
pyramidal stones, formerly erected in the sacred 
burying-ground, hid very deep in the earth, in a 
hollow oak, and marked with wonderful, and, as 



* This puff preliminary, in which there is not a word of 
truth, he had either amplified from some interpolated copy of 
Nennius or Geoffrey of Monmouth, or from some legend in the 
abbey, or been paid for fabricating. He was no more than an 
occasional visitor, though, by his relationship to the king, and 
his connections at court, he might have had an eye upon it 
himself, and this rigmarole stuff been calculated to cajole the 
monks. 



100 THE LIFE OF 

it were, miraculous tokens, was found,* and, 
into the church, with honour, translated, and to 
a marble tomb decently commended : whence, 
also, a leaden cross, a stone being put under it, not 
infixed on the upper part, as it is wont, ought to 
be, rather, in the lower part, which we, also, have 
seen, for we have handled [it], contained these 
letters, and not rising up and standing out, but 
more within, turned to the stone : Hie jacet 

SEPUI/TUS INCLITUS REX ArTHURUS CUM WeN- 
NEVEREIA UX0RE SUA SECUNDA IN INSULA AVAL- 

lonia.J Here, however, occurred very many 
noble things, for he had had two wives, of whom 
the last had her interment at the same time 

* Matthew Paris says, " In the same year [1191] , were 
found, at Glastonbury, the bones of the most famous king of 
Britain, Arthur, hid in a certain most ancient stone coffin, 
about which two most ancient pyramids stood erected, in which 
were letters defaced : but on account of too much barbarism 
and deformity, they could, in no wise be read. Now they 
were found on this occasion : for while they dug there, that 
they might inter a certain monk, who this place of sepulchre, 
with vehement desire, in his life, had wished ; they found a 
certain stone-coffin, to which a leaden cross had been put over, 
in which was defaced, Hie jacet inclytus Btutonum rex 
Arthurus, in insula Avalonis SEPULTUS (P. 138.) 
This coffin, Leland observes, he never heard of, and did not 
believe. 

i Gueimimar, Guenever, Winifred : (see Lhuyds Archieo- 
logia, p. 225, Co. 2 :) " Bychedh Guenvreui : Vita Sanctx Wi- 



KING ARTHUR. 101 

with himself, and her bones were found, at the 
same time, along with those of her husband, so 
distinct, nevertheless, that two parts of the sepul- 
chre, toward the head, had been deputed to con- 
tain the bones of the man ; the third, also, toward 
the feet, were to contain the bones of the woman 
apart : where, also, a yellow lock of the woman's 
hair was found, with its original entirety and co- 
lour ; which, a certain monk greedily snatched 
with his hand, and being lifted up, the whole im- 
mediately fell into dust.* When, however, some 
tokens of the body there found, from his writings, 
some, from the letters impressed on the pyra- 

uifredae." Leland remarks, that Silvester (as he calls him) 
here added something to the inscription of his own head 
(Collectanea, II, 12) ; meaning the words " cum Wen- 
neveria uxore sua secunda;" which will be more full explained 
hereafter. 

Usher (in his Index chronologicus, at the year Dxlii) says, 
" That she may appear to be called second, in respect of another 
Guenever, married, by Arthur, in the very beginning of his 
reign ; whom, by Melvas, king of Somerset, ravished at the 
year 509, from Caradoc of Llancarvan, we have observed." 
Caradoc, however, gives no such date, nor had Usher any, the 
slightest, authority for it, but his own fancy : there not being 
one single date throughout the Vita Gilde. 

* He has something more upon the shameful violence of 
this monk ; but the manuscript is too much burned to permit 
one to make out the whole : it is entirely omitted by sir John 
Prise, though it was then entire. 

L 



102 THE LIFE OF 

mids, although very much destroyed by too great 
antiquity, some, likewise, through visions and 
revelations, made to good and religious men, 
chiefly, nevertheless, and most evidently, the 
king of England, Henry the second, as he had 
heard it from an ancient historical singer, a 
Briton,* intimated the whole to the monks, that 

* ' Henry, no small part of an army being raised, came 
into Wales to levy the rest, and thence to sail from Saint- 
Davids into Ireland, with the hope of obtaining which he 
wholly burned. While he acted these things, being, on ac- 
count of his dignity, entertained by the kinglets of Wales iu 
feasts, he heard bards singing in concert to the harp not with- 
out pleasure, using an interpreter. There was one, truly, 
among the rest, the most learned in the knowledge of antiquity. 
He, the praises and famous actions of Arthur being performed, 
comparing with him Henry as a future conqueror, with many 
names, so sung, that the kings ears were wonderfully both 
tickled and delighted : in which time, also the king chiefly learn- 
ed this from the bard.that Arthur had been buried at Avalon, in 
the sacred cemetery : whence, the bard being munificently dis- 
missed, for the indication of so great a monument, required 
of Henry of Blois or of Soilli, his nephew, who then, or 
a little after, from abbot of Bermondsey, was elected pre- 
fect to the island of Glastonbury, that he with the most ex- 
quisite diligence, would narrowly search for the sepulchre in 
the inclosure of the sacred cemetery. It was several times 
tried, and, at length, with great difficulty found." (Lelands 
Astertio Arturii. Collectanea, V, 49.) This interview of king 
Henry the Second and the bard at a feast in Wales, seems to 
have been worked up by Leland himself; as Girald Bany 



KING ARTHUR. 103 

very deep, to wit, in the earth, for sixteen feet 
at the least, they would find the body, and not 
in a monument of stone, but in a hollowed oak ; 
and, therefore, the body had been so deeply 
placed, and, as it were hid, that it might, in no 
wise, be found by the Saxons, occupying his 
island, after his death, whom, by so great a 
labour, being alive, he had conquered, and, 
almost wholly destroyed ; and, for this reason, 
alsoy letters, the indexes of truth, impressed with 
certain things, were turned inwardly to the stone, 
that, at that time, also, those things which it 
contained, it might hide, and sometimes hide, 
and sometimes, too, in place and time, divulge. 
That, however, which is now called Glaston- 
bury, was anciently called the Isle of Avalon : 
for, the whole island, as it were, is beset with 
marshes : whence, it is called in British, enis 

only says, that " king Henry the second, as he had heard 
from a historical singer, an ancient Briton " (Ibi. II, 10) ; and 
all his authority for it appears to be an anonymous monk of 
Glastonbury : " William of Malmesbury," he says, " would 
have come forward, as the third witness, unless death had 
taken him away [47 years, that is,] before the discovery of the 
sepulchre." Henry had not been in Wales since 1169, and 
Arthurs bones were not discovered until 1191 or 1192, whereas 
he died on the 6th of June 1189; and Henry de Sayle was 
not abbot till the 29th of September in that year. 



104 THE LIFE OF 

Avallon, that is the apple-bearing- island, for, 
with apples, which, in the British tongue, are 
called aval, that place formerly abounded : 
whence, also, Morganis, a noble matron, and 
governess, and patroness of those parts, and, 
also, near in blood to king Arthur, after the 
battle of Kemelen [Camblan], carried Arthur, 
to be cured of his wounds, into the island which 
is now called Glastonbury.* It had, likewise, 
been formerly called, in British, enis gutrin, the 
glassy island, from which word, the Saxons, 
afterward coming, called that place Glastonbury : 
for, glas, in their tongue, means glass, and buri 
is called a castle or city. It is to be known, 
also, that the discovered bones of Arthur were 



* Geoffrey of Monmouth, in his British history, mentions 
nothing of Morgan, (who, in other romances of Arthur, is 
that monarchs half-sister, and a powerful fairy), and only 
says, " But, that famous king Arthur was mortally wounded 
who thence, to be cured of his wounds, was carried into the 
Isle of Avallon" (B. 11, c. 21), without explaining that name 
to mean Glastonbury, which never once appears, by that name, 
throughout his book ; and, in his metrical life of Merlin the 
Caledonian, places it in a distant part of the globe, whither, 
also, Arthur is conveyed in a boat or ship, and where Morgan, 
skilful in surgery, is the eldest of the kings nine daughters 
He forgot the proverb. 



KING ARTHUR. 105 

so large that, also, the saying of the poet might 
appear to be fulfilled in these things : 

" Grandiaque effossis mirabitur ossa sepulchris."* 

For, his thigh-bone being put by that of the 
tallest man of the place, whom, also, the abbot 
shewed to us, and fixed to the earth close by the 
foot of that man, it reached full three fingers 
beyond his knee. The bone, also, of his head, 
as if it were capacious and thick, to a prodigy or 
shew • so that between the hair of the eye-lids, 
and between the eyes, the space would fully 
contain a hand-breadth. There appeared in it, 
however, ten wounds or more, all which, except 
one greater than the rest, which had made a 
large gap, and which alone seemed to have been 
mortal, had come together into a solid cicatrice. f 

* Virgilii Georgicon, L. 1, V. 497. 

t Book of the instruction of a prince (Julius, B. XIII, Dis- 
tinction, chap. 20); and Leland's Collectanea, II, 11. Sir 
John Prise has given a similar extract from a different work of 
Girald, usually called Liber distinctionum (no other title occur- 
ing), and not the Speculum ecclesie, as it is sometimes impro- 
perly called, that being an entirely different work, and not bv 
Girald ; both extant in the Cotton MS. Tiberius, B. XIII. It 
begins, as Prise has it: " Porro quoniam, &c." but reads, 
" fabule confingi," not fabulose ; and (P. 131) " Mo^gani," 
not Morgain lefnye, a puerile interpolation. The title of that 
fhapteris " De sepulcro regis Arthuri ossa ejus contiiiente apad 



106 THE LIFE OF 

With respect to the circumstance of Arthurs 
second wife, the Welsh antiquaries pretend that 
he had no less than three wives, every one 

Glastoniam in nostris diebus invento et plurimis circiter hec 
notabilibus occasionaliter adjunctis :" that of chap. 10 : " Quod 
rex Arthurus precipuus Glastoni . ." The manuscript has been 
much injured, by the fire of 1731, and is partly illegible : but 
there does not appear, in Prise, any additional circumstance 
to the narrative already given : he first states the passage be- 
ginning, " Regnante nostris, &c." (p. 130.) Porro, &c. Now, 
it being very certain that Henry de Saliaco, de Sayle, or de Soilli, 
likewise, called Henry Sully or Swansey, was not abbot before 
Michaelmas, 1189, being the first year of Richard the first, 
he could not, therefore, possibly, have assisted at the disinter- 
ment of Arthur, in the presence or, even in the reign of Henry 
the second (see Willis's Mitred abbeys, I, 103). An extract 
by Leland, from a paper he met with in the library of Glas- 
tonbury-abbey, says, " The bones of Arthur were raised from 
the sacred cemetery, in the year 1189, by Heury Sully, abbot 
of Glastonbury (Collectanea, III, 154): which, by no means, 
removes the difficulty. In other extracts, this discovery is 
dated 1191 (1, 264, 280, V. 54> and 1192 (244). See, also, 
Adam de Domerham, p. 341, and John of Glastonbury, 
p. 182. Randal Higden says, that the body was found under 
the year 1180 (Collectanea, II, 372) : and David Powel, in his 
interpolated and vitiated edition of Caradocs Annals, (1585, 
4to. b. 1. p. 238) says, " This yeare [1179] the bones of 
noble Arthur, and Gwenhouar his wife, were found in the Isle 
of Avalon." At any rate, the discovery, if made in the pre- 
sence of Henry the second, could not be in the time of Henry 
de Soilly, or if made by Henry dc Soilly, could not be in the 
presence of Henry the second. 



KING ARTHUR. 107 

named Gwenhwyfar ; " the first, the daughter of 
Gwryd Gwent, cauled, by som, Corytus ; the 
second, the daughter of Uthyr ap Gredawgol, 
cauled, by som, Crediolus ; and the third, the 
daughter of a giant, cauled Gogfran Gawr :" 
and that the Wenever or Guenever, whose bones 
Avere discovered along with his own, and whose 
name occurred in his epitaph " was not his last 
wife :"* so that he appears to have had one after 
he was dead. To prove, however, the singular 
consistency of these infallible Cambrians, it ap- 
pears, from their favourite " Trioch/' Triades or 
Triads, that these three Gwennhuyvars were not 
the wives of Arthur, but " Three prime dam- 
sels" residing at his court ; and that his f three 
wives or mistresses, were Judee, daughter to 
Arvy the tall, and Garvy White-hams, daughter 
to old Henin, and Guyl, daughter to Endaut."f 

Leland, mentioning the two chapters of Gi- 
rald, concerning Arthur, in what he mistakenly 
calls his book De specuio ecclesie, adds, that he 
had, in another book, read Ihe same translation 
to have been made in the oeginning of the reign 
of Richard [1191]. Neither, he observes, does 
Girald there affirm that he was present at the 

* Lewis, p. 185,196; Prise, 134. 
t Harley manuscripts, Num. 4181. 



108 THE LIFE OF 

translation of the remains, but that Henry, the 
abbot, shewed him the cross, with the bones, 
found a short time before, in the sepulchre of 
Arthur ; and reports this inscription of the 
cross : " Hie jacet sepultus inclytus rex Arturius in 
insula Avallonice cum Wenneria uxore sua se- 
cunda}" whereas, says he, in the cross, which 
they now shew (and which he had himself seen), 
there is no mention of his wife. They erected, 
as he elsewhere tells us, a leaden cross about a 
foot long, which, also, he says, I have contem- 
plated with most curious eyes, containing, in 
Roman capitals, rudely engraved, the following 
words : " Hie jacet sepultus inclytus rex 
Arturius in insula Avalonia."* 

* Collectanea, V, 45. This is the cross of which Camden 
has given the figure, and fac-simile inscription, imposing it, 
either by design or ignorance, upon his readers, as the one 
mentioned by Giraldus ; which he could not but have known, 
when he read and transcribed either that original writer, or 
Leland, or sir John Prise, was not the fact : he has, in- 
deed, now and then, the cullibility of honest Leland, and ex- 
presses or implies his belief in Joseph of Arimathea, Arthur, 
Guy, Bevis, and so forth, the heroes and creatures of romance, 
for whose existence he knew he could cite no authority, of 
which, at least, he would not have been ashamed. Matthew 
Paris, in the third place, gives it thus : " Hie jacet inclytus 
BriTonum rex Arturius in insula Avalonia sepul- 
tus:" so that the epitaph of Arthur has nearly as many 



KING ARTHUR. 109 

There is nothing wonderful in the circum- 
stance of this worthy and industrious antiquary, 
becoming a complete dupe to this imposture, 
when not less than three of the greatest mo- 
narchs that ever tyrannised in any part of Britain, 
were, to use a vulgar phrase, completely taken 
in: "Henry the second, king of England," as 
Leland observes, " in the grant of his donation, 
in which he subscribes to the ancient privileges 
of the monastery of Glastonbury, plainly affirms 
himself to have seen the donation of Arthur :"* 
which the no less pious than dexterous monks 
of the blessed mother of god, had, indisputa- 
bly, forged, as they did the legend of Joseph of 
Arimathea, their pretended original founder, the 
charter of saint Patrick, the life of that saint by 
William of Malmesbury, whom they made to write, 
" Of the antiquity of the church of Glastonbury," 
not less than fifty years after his death, the history 
of Melkin, and other legendary rhodomontades, 
with which their precious archives abounded. 
King Richard the first, having, upon his visit, to 

various readings as that of Jesus Christ. Leland, at the 
same time, laments that one whose authority he, deservedly, 
very much favoured, should have added some redundant words 
of his own to the epitaph in the inscription : meaning, in fact, 
the aforesaid Matthew Paris. 
• Collectanea, V, 6, 32, 33, 34. 



110 THE LIFE OF 

Glastonbury, to behold the resurrection of the 
royal bones, as it is presumed, been presented 
with the best sword of the noble Arthur, chris- 
tened by his prelatical historian, Caliburn, trans- 
ferred it, as the most valuable relick in the 
world, to Tancred, king of Sicily.* They even 
produced his great seal, in wax., of an age ante- 
rior, by five centuries, to the use of seals in 
Britain, with the following pompous inscription : 
Patricius Arturius Britannia Gallic Ger- 
manic Dacic imperator:" which, having some- 
how or other found its way to Westminster, 
Leland, if not our best, at least, our most 
ancient, antiquary, who had met with a reference 
to its situation in Caxtons chronicle, and the 
simplicity of whose honest narrative can, scarcely, 
be now, by his most profound admirer, perused 
without a smile, went down to the abbey on 
purpose to examine it, and has given a very 
minute, and, doubtless, very accurate, descrip- 
tion of this singular curiosity. 

* Chro. J. Bromton, Co. 1195. 



KING ARTHUR 111 



CHAP. XXIV. 

Of Gildas. 

G i l d a s (who was probably contemporary with 
Arthur in the former part of his life, being born 
on the day of the battle of Badon, and who, appa- 
rently, wrote at an advanced age) represents the 
Britons, of his own time, as " a parcel of cowards 
and rascals, who gave their backs for shields, their 
necks to swords (a cold fear running through 
their bones), and held up their hands, to be 
bound, in the manner of a woman : so that it 
was carried out, far and wide, into a proverb, 
and derision, that the Britons were neither brave 
in war, nor faithful in peace."* In another 
place, he says, " that, on account of the rapine 
and avarice of the princes, on account of the 
iniquity and injustice of the judges, on account 
of the idleness and sloth of preaching of the 
bishops, on account of the luxury and evil man- 
ners of the people, they lost their country."f 

* C. 4, (Josselins edition, p. 86.) 

t Lelands Collectanea, I, 399 ; Ushers Antiquitates, 289. 
This passage, extracted from an epistle of Alcuinus Albinus 



112 THE LIFE OF 

•'Britain," he exclaims, "has kings, but ty- 
rants ; has judges, but, unjust ; often plundering 
and shaking, but the innocent ; vindicating and 
patronising, but criminals and robbers j having 
many wives, but harlots and adultresses ; often 
swearing, but perjuring themselves ; vowing, 
also, continually, but nearly lying j making war, 
but making civil and unjust wars ; through the 
country greatly following thieves, and those who 
sit with them at table, not only loving, but, also 
rewarding ; giving alms largely, but heaping up 
out of the country an immense mountain of 
crimes ; sitting on the bench to decide, but, 
rarely, enquiring the rule of right justice ; the 
harmless and humble despising ; the blood- 
thirsty, the proud, parricides, soldiers and adul- 
terers, enemies of god, if their lot, as it is said, 
he will take away (who with his very name were 

(Alcuin, a Saxon) Opera, Paris, 1617, en. 1.535 and 1668), 
does not occur in the printed copies ; either, therefore, it 
must be the sense of Gildas in the phraseology of Alcuin, or 
the present text is defective. Leland, however, elsewhere 
observes, " It appears, from many places in this distinction 
[the first, that is, of bishop Barrys book, intitled De institu- 
tione principis] Girald not to have used any other copy of 
Gildas, than that which is now publicly read" (Collectanea, II, 
10.) The genuine words of Gildas, therefore, seem to occur 
m the next sentence. 



KING ARTHUR. 113 

earnestly to be destroyed), extolling, as they are 
able, to the stars 3 having- many bound in prisons, 
whom, by their own fraud, rather than demerit, 
they squeeze, loading them with chains : re- 
maining swearing among the altars, and these 
same things, as if vile stones, a little after 
despising."* 

• Josselins edition, p. 24. One would imagine, that Gil- 
das, like Merlin, had possessed an incubus of prophecy, and 
was describing, if the same country, at least, a very different 
people. He died in 570. 



114 THE LIFE OF 



CHAP. XXV. 

Of Nennius and Samuel. 

JN e n n i u s, a Briton, was the disciple of saint 
Elbod,* and flourished (as the phrase is) in the 
year 858, and in the twenty-fourth year of Mer- 
vin, king of the Britons.f He seems, at first, to 
have called his book " Eulogium Britannie/'X af- 
terward " Historia [or " Gesta'~\ Britonum : which 

* See Bertrams edition, p. 93, 95, 143. That Nennius 
was a monk of the monastery of Bangor is a mistake of Gale, 
continued, with equal folly, by Bertram. " Elbodius [bishop of 
LlandafF] , aud archbishop of North- Wales [died hi the year 
809] ; before whose death, the sun was sore eclipsed." (His- 
tory of Cambria, p. 20.) This monastery was destroyed long 
before 858. 

t Ibi. p. 94, 104. Whitaker, in his " History of Man- 
chester," (II, 40, 4to. edition), asserts, that " Nennius is really, 
prior to Gildas, the former having written about 550, and the 
latter about 564 : the time of Gildas is well enough hit upon ; 
but that of Nennius, is a blunder, and not the only one in his 
fabulous history. 

% No ancient manuscript has <r, but, always, e ; and such 
a circumstance would [be] a certain criterion of forgery. 
The English, uniformly, make use of the a, but the earliest 
Roman manuscripts never have that diphthong; but, univer- 
sally, ae. 



KING ARTHUR. U5 

he tells us in his preface, that « partly from the 
traditions of the greater [men], partly written, 
partly, even, from the monuments of the old in- 
habitants of Britain, partly, also, from the chro- 
nicles of the holy fathers, that is to say, Jerome, 
Prosper, Eusebius, and also, from the history of 
the Scots [Irish] and Saxons, although our ene- 
mies, not as I willed but as I was able, complying 
with the commands of my elders, this little his- 
tory, from what place soever collected, I have 
accumulated by saying something to no pur- 
pose." 

This book, however, considering its antiquity, 
might have been held in great esteem, though, as 
books were at that time, it abounds with tradi- 
tion and fable : and, what is very strange, half 
of the manuscripts, it is believed, are attributed 
to Gildas, and many are anonymous : William of 
Malmesbury appears, from a few extracts, to 
have had a copy, but did not know the name of 
the author: Henry, archdeacon of Huntingdon, 
had another copy, which would seem to have 
been imputed to Gildas, whom he names. It, 
unfortunately, fell into the hands of one Samuel,* 
a Briton, and disciple to Beularius, a priest, who, 

* Bale calls this man " Samuel Beulanius," and archbishop 
Usher, after him, with equal ignorance, " Samuel Benlan." 
(p. 206). 



116 THE LIFE OF 

either, interpolated and polluted the text, or, 
merely, according to the practice of that period, 
acted the part of a scholiast, by filling the mar- 
gin, as Eustathius served Homer, and Servius, 
Virgil, &c. with scholia or glosses; which, falling 
into still worse hands, were inserted, from time 
to time in the text, so that a genuine copy of 
Nennius, as originally written, would be difficult 
to meet with. 

In the year 613 (according to Bede, or 607, 
upon the authority of the Saxon chronicle), 
the most brave Aedilfrid [iEJ^elpniS], king of the 
Engles [then pagans], a great army being col- 
lected, gave, at the city of Legions (which was 
called, by the Engles, Legacaestir [Lejaceajrne] , 
by the Britons, however, more rightly Carlegion 
[now Chester], a very great slaughter of that 
perfidious people : and when, the battle being 
about to be done, he saw their priests, who had 
assembled to pray god for the soldier managing 
the battle, to stand apart in a safer place, he 
enquired who these were, and what they had 
assembled in that place about to do. Now 
a great many of them were from the monaster] 
of Bangor,* in which so irreat a Dumber <>t 

• " Twelve miles from Chester" (Lelands Colltctmia, LI. 

601). 



KING ARTHUR. 117 

monks is reported to have been, that when the 
monastery was divided into seven parts, with the 
rulers set over them, no portion of these had less 
than three hundred men, who all were accus- 
tomed to live by the labour of their own hands. 
Of these, therefore, a great many, at the re- 
counted battle, a three-days-fast being accom- 
plished, had assembled, with others, for the 
sake of praying, having a defender, named 
Brocmail, who should protect them, intent to 
their prayers, from the swords of the barbarians. 
When king Aedilfrid had understood the reason 
of their coming, he said : ' ' If, therefore, they cry 
to their god against us, and, certainly, they 
themselves, although they do not bear arms, 
fight against us, who are persecuted by their im- 
precations adverse to us :" he, therefore, or- 
dered, in the first place, the arms to be turned 
upon them, and so destroyed the other forces of 
that abominable militia, not without great loss 
of his own army. They report, about two thou- 
sand men, of those who had come to pray, to 
have been extinct in that battle, and only fifty to 
be fallen in flight. Brocmail, turning, with his 
soldiers, their backs, at the first coming of the 
enemy, left those whom he ought to have de- 
fended, unarmed, and exposed to the smiting 
swords.* 

* Bede, B. 2, C. 2. 
M 



H8 THE LIFE OF 

Tanner, from whatever authority, in his note 
on Lelands life of Nennius, says, '* he got away 
from this slaughter, at Chester, and travelled 
over Wales, and the neighbouring islands of the 
Scots [Irish], that he might propagate and con- 
firm the christian religion." The Xennius, how- 
ever, he is speaking of, wrote in 858 j the battle 
of Chester happened in 607, a difference of up- 
wards of 250 years ! 

Leland, who had called this historian " an un- 
certain author," not knowing the work, at any 
rate, to be that of Nennius. In a note, however, 
he speaks of " Ninnius or Nennius, a Briton, the 
disciple of Elbod, the author of the chronicle, 
whereof Thomas Sulmo made him a copy : for 
he had an exemplar, not mutilated and without a 
preface, [a sufficient proof, however, that it was 
actually mutilated], as," he says, "mine was."* 
He, afterward, " From the annotations, which 
were inscribed in the margin of the ancient book 
of Nennius, which," says he, " I borrowed of 
Thomas Sulmo 3" and, after a few extracts, adds : 
"So I have found, that to thee, Samuel, that is, 
infant of my master Beulan, in this page I have 
written. From these words, the conjecture Is, 
for Samuel to have been author of the annota- 
tions, which were in the margin of Nennius." 

* Collectanea, II. 45. 



KING ARTHUR. 119 

He says of him : " He writes confusedly, and 
without judgement, also with filthy words, not 
doubting him to insert fables, any more than old 
wives." In the margin he adds : " Mention is 
made of a certain Nennius, in the life of saint 
Finnan."* This, however, could not, possibly, 
be Nennius, the historian, who wrote, as already 
said, in S58, and was not a monk of Bangor, 
but one of the same name, who was a monk 
thereof, and would seem, from Tanner, to have 
escaped from the battle of Chester, in 607. As 
to the three Irish saints, named Finan, they all 
appear to have died in the sixth century j as the 
Scotish ones did in the seventh. Gale inserts 
the marginal annotations of Samuel (which, in 
the best, if not all, the manuscripts, are in the 
margin), between crotchets in the text 5 Ber- 
tram, who published his edition at Copenhagen, 
never saw the manuscripts, but relies upon Gale ; 
only he distinguishes the interpolations, some- 
times, as well by crotchets, as italics, and in- 
verted commas, and sometimes, with inverted 
commas alone : which deforms his book, at 
least, if it shews no want of judgement, as the 
marginal annotations, usually attributed to Sa- 
muel, are, frequently, by others, and should 
either have been inserted in notes, under the 

* Collectanea, II. 47. 



120 THE LIFE OF 

text, or, after the text, or by way of appendix. 
From the 60th chapter, (at the end of which are 
these words, "Hie expliciunt a Nennlo [d«o, cor- 
rupt^ Gilda sapiente composita] conscripta), he 
marks all the remaining chapters (including Ar- 
thurs battles), with inverted commas, as some 
passages are, likewise, between crotchets, and in 
italics. It appears, from William of Malmes- 
bury, that the nameless copy he had, contained 
the battle of the Badonick mount, " fretus 
imagine dominicce matris, quam armis suis in- 
suerat, &c." but these words are not in Bertrams 
edition, nor the story, under the battle of 
Badon. Henry of Huntingdons extracts (from 
" Gildas the historiographer") are much more 
considerable and more consonant to the manu- 
scripts, than those of William of Malmesbury ; 
but neither the monk nor the archdeacon no- 
tices Arthurs fabulous [journey] to Jerusalem ; 
so that, if any new manuscript of Ncnnius be 
ever found, that absurd story will not be there 
to pollute it. It is said, by the Welsh editors of 
"The Myvyrian archaiologyof Wales" (II, vii) : 
"There is a copy of Nennius, in the Vatican- 
library, the oldest that is known, undoubtedly, 
written in the beginning of the tenth century, 
which contains the story of Brute. *' These My- 
vyrian archaiologists seem to suppose, " the 



KING ARTHUR. 121 

' unfounded' story of Brute to be the criterion 
of the most ancient and perfect copy of Nennius: 
although there is not a single copy, ancient or 
modern, manuscript or printed, Gale or Ber- 
tram, wherein f ' the story of Brute" does not 
occur : a manifest proof that they have never 
perused nor ever seen a copy of Nennius, as it 
stands staring every one in the face, who can 
either read or see, in the second and third chap- 
ters, and in the genuine words of the original 
author : tc Britannia insula a quodam Bruto vo- 
catur," (C. 2) : ".Et sic venii ut in nativitate il- 
lius mulier est mortua et nutritus est filius vocat~ 
umque est nomen ejus Bruto," (C. 3). A Welsh- 
man, however, who wanted " the story of Brute," 
would, naturally, have recourse to the British 
history of Geoffrey of Monmouth : the pink of 
veracity ! William Owen, in his " Cambrian 
Biography/' asserts that Nennius, an historian, 
flourished toward " the close of the eighth cen- 
tury," but is the year S58, in which Nennius, 
with his own hand, records himself to have 
finished his book, in "the close of the eighth 
century ?" " Like Gildas and Tysilio/ he adds, 
" he edited a breviary of the history of Britain, 
[which was, certainly, done by neither Gildas 
nor Tysilio] . ..and the same subject was con- 
tinued by Marcus, whose original copy is in the 



122 THE LIFE OF 

Vatican-library. A very valuable edition/' he 
says, " with a commentary, is now preparing for 
the press, by the reverend William Gunn, [of 
Norwich], which will clear up and rectify the 
obscurities and errors in the editions by Gale 
and Bertram :'' this, indeed, we shall be glad to 
see j but, it is to be hoped, that this reverend 
editor is not a Welshman. 



KING ARTHUR. 1<23 



CHAP. XXVI. 

Of the translation of the bones of king Arthur 
and his queen, by king Edward the first and 
queen Eleanor. 

In the year of the lord, 1276, king Edward, son 
of Henry the third, came with his queen to 
Glastonbury. In the tuesday, truly, next fol- 
lowing, the king, and all his court were enter- 
tained at the expenee of the monastery : in 
which day, in the twilight of the evening, he 
caused the sepulchre of the famous king Arthur 
to be opened, where, in two chests, their images 
and arms being painted, he found the separate 
bones of the said king of wonderful magnitude. 
The crowned image, truly, of the queen. The 
crown of the kings image was prostrate, with 
the abscision of the left ear, and with the ves- 
tiges of the wound of which he died. A manifest 
writing was found upon each. In the morrow, 
that is to say, on Wednesday, the king the bones 
of the king, the queen the bones of the queen, 
being rolled in [two] several precious palls, shut- 
ting up again in their chests, and putting on 



124 THE LIFE OF 

their seals, commanded the same sepulchre to 
be, quickly, placed before the high altar, the 
heads of both being retained without, on account 
of the devotion of the people, a writing of this 
kind having been put' within : " These are the 
bones of the most noble king Arthur, which in 
the year of the incarnation of the lord 1278, in 
the 13th kalends of May [19th of April], by the 
lord Edward, the illustrious king of England, 
were here so placed : Eleanor, the most serene 
consort of the same king, and daughter of the lord 
Ferrand, king of Spain, master William de Mid- 
dleton, then elect of Norwich, master Thomas de 
Becke, archdeacon of Dorset, and treasurer of 
the aforesaid king, the lord Henry de Lascy, earl 
of Lincoln, the lord Amade', earl of Savoy, and 
many great men of England, being present* 

* Lelands Collectanea, V. 55, from a monk of Glaston- 
bury. Lcland, on his visit to Glastonbury-abbey, seems to 
have found two other epitaphs of Arthur and his wife, which 
being among his papers, have been inserted in the Collec- 
tanea, III, 18, and are as follows : 

" Epitaphium Arthuri." 
" Hicjacet Arturus,jlos regutn, gloria regui, 
Quem mores probittu commendtmt laude peremriJ' 
" Versus Henrici Swansey, Math Glaston." 

" Injcrius ad pedem ijuuiim.'' 

" Arturijacet hie conjua tumulata seewtda, 
Qua meruit Cttlos, rirlutum prole fecumlu." 



KING ARTHUR. 125 

" King Edward, in 1289, being at Caernarvon 
[in Wales], the crown of Arthur, with other 
jewels, was rendered to him.''* 

* Lelands Coll. 346, 404. 



126 THE LITE OF 



CHAP. XXVII. 

Of the Abbey of Glastonbury. 

J- h e b e was., certainly (if one may believe Ca- 
radoc of Llancarvan, in his life of saint Gildas), 
a monastery at Glastonbury, of British institu- 
tion and inhabited by an abbot and monks, in 
the sixth century : but it is, equally, certain that 
no English historian hos given the least account 
of it or been, in any wise, acquainted with it. 
Saint Dunstan and the Saxon abbots and monks, 
who came thither in the tenth century, not 
knowing any thing of the establishment of former 
times nor having any authentic chronicles, had 
recourse to the forgery and fabrication of lying 
legends, of James the son of Zebedee, Simon 
Zelota, Simon Peter and saint Paul : AristubuJus, 
Claudia- Ritfina, the twelve disciples of Philip, 
Joseph of Arimathea, Taurinus, Eutrop'ius, Timo- 
thy, Nuvniiis, Praxed, Prudentia, Lucius. I 
Duvian, Aaron, saint Patrick and many more 
such nonentities : all forgery and falsehood, gree- 
dily, swallowed and vomited up by archbishop 
Usher and other pretended antiquaries, to the 



KING ARTHUR. 127 

pollution of true history and the everlasting dis- 
grace of English literature. Glastonbury, ac- 
cording to William of Malmesbury (who ap- 
pears to have known nothing of its ancient British 
church,) " was a town [in Somersetshire] placed 
in a certain marshy recess, which, nevertheless, 
might be approached both by horse and foot." 
" There," he says, " in the first place, king Ina,* 
by the advice of the most blessed Aldhelm, built 
a monastery, having bestowed thereon many 
manors and which at ' that ' day [1142] are 

* This Ina, Inas or Ini, as appears from Bedes ecclesiastical 
history and the Saxon chronicle succeeded Ceadwal, king of the 
West Saxons, in the year 688 and, after a reign of 37 years, 
went to Rome (as Ceadwal had done before), in 725 and there 
lived till the day of his death. According to the latter autho- 
rity, he built that monastery at Glastonbury ; of which, how- 
ever, Bede says nothing nor, even, once notices that place 
throughout [his] history, though living at the time and very 
attentive to ecclesiastical matters. Aldhelm, abbot of Malmes- 
bury and, afterward, bishop of Sherborne, died in 709, William 
of Malmesbury writing his life, in which, he says, that, "Alfred 
commemorates a trivial song, which is hitherto sung by the 
common people, to have been made by Aldhelm." He, like- 
wise, mentions Arcivil, son of the king of Scotland [r. Ireland .- 
there was no other Scotland at that time] and says, " He pro- 
cured whatsoever [he could] of the literary art, but was so far 
hungry, that he committed himself to the judgement of Ald- 
helm : that, by the file of perfect wit, his Scotish [r. Irish] 
scabbincss might be scraped." Aldhelm wrote a letter, in 680, 
to Gerunt, king of the Cornish-Britons, concerning the tonsure. 



128 THE LIFE OF 

named and, truly, in the various vicissitudes 
of the times, but the successions [and] assem- 
blys of monks, not failing, the place shone until 
the arrival of the Danes, under king Alfred [868]. 
Then, truly, as the rest, being desolated for 
some years, it wanted its usual inhabitants. 
Moreover, whatsoever the fury of wars had de- 
stroyed, Dunstan [abbot, 942],* who had, before, 
being a monk of that place, led there a solitary 
life, excellently, repaired. Afterward, truly, by 
the liberality of king Edmund [941-946], all 
former appendages and, with these, having ob- 
tained, many more, he built an abbey : such 
as no where in England was or would be.t 
So much was the extent and convenience of the 
foundations, so much the fairness and antiquity 
of the books, abound. Patrick,'' he says, "lies 
there (if the thing were worthy to believe), by 
nation a Briton, a disciple of the blessed German, 
bishop of Auxerre, whom, being, by pope Coe- 
lestin, ordained a bishop, he sent apostle to the 
Irish : who, for many years, doing his labour in 
the conversion of that nation, the grace of god 
co-operating was, somewhat, advanced ; at length, 

* Sim fon Duntlmaisis, sub anno. 

t " Glastonbury, which lii> [Edgars] lather [EdimimiJ In 

himself perfected." (Ethelred, Of the gmtalogy of the hog^ 
Decern scriptores, co. S59. ^ 



KING ARTHUR. 129 

being admonished by the irksomeness of a pere- 
grination full of years, at once, also, by a near 
old age, thinking to return into his own country, 
he there closed his day."* This story of saint 
Patrick, (whose history is, sufficiently, credible 
so far as it relates to Ireland) is, manifestly, false ; 
since, from every Irish life of this saint and, 
even, by his own ' ' Confession,'' he neither was, 
ever, abbot of Glastonbury, as the legends of 
that monastery assert, or, even, in any part of 
Britain, from the time of his being carried off, 
when not quite sixteen, from the western part of 
Albany (now Scotland)! into Ireland (then Scot- 
land), amongst other captives to be sold, to the 
day of his death. These worthless monks filled 
their monastery with forgery and falsehood. 
The " charta sancti Patricii,''' so ably confuted by 

* Of the acts of the bishops, B. 2, p. 254. 

t His father, Calporn, a deacon, the son, formerly, of Potit, 
a priest, who was in a village Bonavem Tabernie (or, according 
to Probus, Bannave Tyburnie, a country not far from the western 
sea), had a little farm Emm hard by, where he gave himself up 
to capture. There is, in archbishop Ushers " Veto-urn episto- 
larum Hibernicarum sylloge ; Dublinii, 1632, 4to. p. 32, in the 
epistle of Cummian an Irishman (born 592, died 661, Cave) 
to Segien, abbot of Hy, these words : — " Primum ilium quern 
sanctus Patricius papa noster tulit et facit ; in quo Lund & 
xim. usque in xxi. regulariter et equinoctium a xii. kalend. 
April, observatur." 



130 THE LIFE OF 

sir Thomas Ryves,* seems to have been one of 
their first attempts : this they forged in the per- 
son of saint Patrick and made him tell a parcel of 
fables about their pretended antiquities and sup- 
posititious saints, and this palpable forgery sir 
James Ware was so weak as to print, as a ge- 
nuine work, in his " Opuscula " of saint Patrick 
(Londini, 1656, 8vo.) This, however, was not 
sufficient, but, the more firmly to establish the 
falsehood, forged, in the name of William of 
Malmesbury, " The three books, which of the 
life of saint Patrick, he wrote to the monks of 
Glastonbury,'' sometime, no doubt, after the 
death of this honest and worthy monk : which 
book Leland found in the library of the priory 
of Twinham in Hampshire, and gives a pretty 
long extract from it.t Neither was this the only 
work they attributed to him. Little, indeed, 
did he think, when for the sake of devotion, he 
attempted to -cut off the finger of saint Canidoc, 
whose body was about to be translated, and who 
saved his finger from pollution, by a galvanick 
grasp, that, having been so laborious a histori- 
ographer, in his lifetime, he was, likewise, to be 

* " Regiminis Anglican in Hibernia defmrio, advtntu Ana- 
lecten [David Roth]. Libritres. Autart Tho. Htnio I. C. rtgit 
advocate. Londini, 1624, 4 to. p. 48. 

t Collectanea, II. 27;>. This was a house <>t Austin canons* 



KING ARTHUR. 131 

compelled to labour for his brethren of Glaston- 
bury, after his death : this, however, is an authen- 
ticated fact, for, exclusive of the forged life of 
saint Patrick, already mentioned, "Tho. Gale, Th. 
Pr. (that is to say, in other words, doctor of divi- 
nity)," at Oxford, among his elaborate Histories 
Britannicce, Saxonicce, Anglo'Danicce, scriptores 
XV. (1691, folio) has the epistle " de excidio 
Britannia" of Gildas, who, as he says (in Latin) 
" wrote other things" [none of which, however, 
he, certainly, ever saw, or knew what any of 
them was]. " Of him," he adds, " William of 
Malmesbury, in [his book] " De antiquilate Glas- 
toniensis ecclesice, p. 296 [thus speaks] : " Gildas, 
the historian ; to whom the Britons owe [it], if 
any thing of knowledge they have amongst other 
nations." Now, it, unfortunately, happens, that 
this respectable historian never had the satisfac- 
tion of meeting with a copy of Gildas's querulous 
epistle ; nor does he ever quote it, or, even, 
once mentions his name. It is a still more unfor- 
tunate circumstance for this learned doctor, 
since William of Malmesbury, in his undisputed 
and indisputable work " Of the acts of the kings 
of the Engles " (B.3, p. 115), expressly asserts, 
that "the grave of Arthur was never seen:" 
this he said between the years 1135 and 1142, 
in the later of which he is, likewise, supposed to 



132 THE LIFE OF 

have died : but his supposititious namesake, who- 
soever he was, no less expressly, asserts, " I 
omit to speak of Arthur, the famous king of the 
Britons, in the cemetery of the monks [of Glas- 
tonbury], between two pyramids, interred with 
his wife."* Now, it is a notorious fact that the 
grave of Arthur was, utterly, unknown, not only 
to William of Malmesbury, in 1142, but, cer- 
tainly, to any one, not, even, to a single abbot or 
monk of Glastonbury, before the year 1191 or 
1192 (as elsewhere, already, evinced), since, ex- 
clusive of those dates, repeatedly, occurring in 
the extracts of Lelands Collectanea, two monks 
of that church, who appear as its historians, in 
their own names, Adam, of Domerham, that is, 
and John of Glastonbury, both in print : the 
former of whom attributes the discovery of Ar- 
thurs bones to king Henry the second, who died 
on the 6th of July, 1189, and Henry of Sayle, 
the abbot, who, as we have seen, was not in that 
situation till some monthsa fter the kings death, 
and the latter, in the same year : both of them, 
in their respective accounts, lying, manifestly, 
according to the habit of a Glastonbury monk. 
Now, between the year of the real William of 
Malmesburys death, ami the discovery of Arthurs 
grave, for the sake of a round number, without 

• Page 



KING ARTHUR. 133 

cavilling about a year more or less, is the differ- 
ence of fifty years : so that this learned professor 
of theology, who had the manuscript transcribed 
or, it may be, transcribed it himself, and both pub- 
lished and quoted it, must, inevitably, pass for 
one who should not have meddled with the pub- 
lication of old manuscripts which he did not un- 
derstand j and this not being the only blunder 
he has committed, even, as it will appear in the 
publication of this spurious book : though, as 
the queen, in Hamlet, exclaims, 

" One woe doth tread upon anothers heel !" 

for Thomas Hearne, who has acquired the repu- 
tation of a great antiquary, from the prodigious 
number of volumes, mostly in Latin and, partly, 
in black letter, he edited, generally, if not, 
always, by subscription, and the liberal pa- 
tronage of Robert and Edward, successively, 
earls of Oxford, though his subscribers may, per- 
adventure, have, now and then, had no little 
difficulty to make some of them out or, haply, 
conjecture why they should have been published 
at all : as, according to a certain epigrammati- 
cal wit : 

" Pox on't, quoth Time, to Thomas Hearne, 
Whatever I forget you learn." 



134 THE LIFE OF 

However this may be, honest Thomas actually 
reprinted, before the compilations of Adam of 
Domerham, the forged book of William of 
Malmesbury ' ' of the antiquity of the church of 
Glastonbury," which must necessarily and ma- 
nifestly have been composed fifty years after his 
death, the date of which [1142] he had got 
from John Pits, as Gale had done before him : 
but, as a proof of his candour, though not of his 
judgement, he says in his preface to the reader : 
u I do not dissemble, that a long time ago, the 
most illustrious Gale edited William [of Malmes- 
bury]. Yes, truly, the edition of Gale abounds 
with many errors, gross and foul 3 as, also, many 
omissions are discoA'ered therein :" 

" Thus one fool lolls his tongue out at another, 
And shakes his empty noddle at his brother."* 

* After all, it must be acknowledged, that, though Gale and 
Hearne, undoubtedly, evinced a considerable want of both 
judgement and knowledge, in the duplicate publication of this 
spurious book : yet Leland is not without blame, as such a 
bombastical, fabulous, and absurd book as his " Commentarii 
de tcriptaribut Britatinicis," certainly, is, id which this identi- 
cal forgery is by him (as well as Bale) attributed to William of 
Malmesbury, though it was not printed before 1709. How- 
ever, it must be confessed, that Tanner is the mosl to blame, 
since he implicitly transcribes not only the prolix falsifications 
of Inland, but those of Bale and Pits and Thomas Dempster. 
Neither Camden, indeed, nor Usher, nor Browne Willis, nor 



KING ARTHUR. 135 

With respect to this fictitious book, of which 
so much has been said, it seems a compilation of 
various forgeries of the monks of Glastonbury, 
who were, particularly, addicted to that crime, 
that is to say, by their legends of pretended 
saints that never existed ; then forged charters 
and grants, of property they never possessed ; 
their fabricated relics of pigs bones 5* their cru- 
cifixes, which, occasionally, spoke and some- 
times shed blood: all these puppet-shews, how- 
ever, were calculated for pilgrims and bigoted 
fools, who flocked in crowds, with their pecuni- 
ary, and, it may be, in some instances, terri- 
torial offerings ; which brought grist to the 
mill, and satiated the gluttony of a parcel of fat 
and lazy monks, who passed their time in eating, 
drinking, and sleeping 3 braying like so many 
asses, at stated times, which was, impertinently, 
called singing and serving god. So much for 
the monks of the abbey of Glastonbury : and now 
for a few specimens of the forged and spurious 
book of the pseudo -William of Malmesbury : 

" It is read in the gests of the most illustrious 
king Arthur, that, when in a certain festival of 

Richard Gough, (Sepulchral monuments, I, xciii), had perspi- 
cacity to discover that a book which relates a circumstance 
which did not happen till 50 years after the deatli of the im- 
puted author, cannot, possibly, have been written by him. 
* See Chaucers Pardoners tale. 



13G THE LIFE OF 

the birth-day of the lord, at Caerleon, a most 
brave youth, the son, to wit, of kingNuth, called 
Ider, had been decorated with military ensigns, 
and the same, for the sake of being experienced, 
into the mount of frogs, now called Brentknowl, 
where it had been given out to be three giants, 
most infamous for their evil deeds, was led to be 
about to fight against them; the same knight, 
going before Arthur and his attendants and not 
knowing it, having attacked, valiantly, the said 
giants, massacred them with marvellous slaugh- 
ter: who being destroyed, Arthur coming up, 
finding the said Ider fainting by too much la- 
bour, and having fallen into a trance, altogether, 
without power of himself, the same as if dead was 
lamented with his companions. Returning, 
therefore, to their own homes, with ineffable 
sorrow, the body which was thought lifeless, 
until a vehicle had been destined thither to bear 
it away. Reputing himself the cause of his 
death, because he had come to his assistance too 
late, when, at last, he came to Glastonbury, he 
there instituted twenty-four monks for the soul 
of the same knight, possessions and territories, 
for their support, gold and silver, chalices, and 
other ecclesiastical ornaments, abundantly be- 
stowing "" 

• Of the antiquity of the church of' Glastonbury, p, 307. 



KING ARTHUR. 137 

Among "the possessions given to Glaston- 
bury, by the Engles converted to the faith," is 
the following donation by the same king : 

"In the first place, king Arthur, in the time 
of the Britons, gave Brentemaris, Poweldon, 
with many other lands situated in the confine, 
for the soul of Ider, as above is touched, which 
lands by the Engles, then Pagans, coming upon 
them, being taken away, once more, after their 
conversion to the faith, they restored with many 
others/'* 

" Of the two pyramids." " That which is, 
almost, unknown to all, I shall willingly declare, 
if I should be able to get at the truth, what those 
pyramids will to themselves ; which placed, by 
some feet, from the old church, surround the 
cemetery of the monks : the higher, truly, and 
nearer to the church hath five storys and the al- 
titude of twenty-six feet; this, by reason of its 
too great age, although it threatens ruin, hath, 
nevertheless, some spectacles of antiquity, which, 
plainly, may be read, although, they may not be 
fully understood. In the higher story, truly, is 
an image made in the pontifical habit. In the 
second, an image holding forth a royal pomp 
and the letters : Her, Sexi and Blisyer. In the 

* Of the antiquity of the church of Glastonbury, p. 326. 



138 THE LIFE OF 

third, nothing less than the names : JVemerest, 
Bantomp, Pinepegn. In the fourth : Hats, Pul- 
fred and Eanfled. In the fifth, which, also, is 
the lower : an image and this writing : Logpor, 
Peslicas and Bregden, Spelpes, Hyin Gendes, Bern. 
The other pyramid, truly, hath eighteen feet and 
(four) storys, in which these are read : Hedde, 
bishop, and Bregored, and Beorwald. What these 
may signify, not, rashly, I define, but, from sus- 
picion, I collect, more within, in hollow stones 
to be contained the bones of those, whose names 
are read more without. Certainly, Logpor is for 
certain asserted to be, of whose name Log peres- 
beorh was called, which now is called Mount- 
acute. Bregden from whom Brenta-cnolle, which 
now is called Brentamerse. Beorwald, notwith- 
standing, the abbot after Hemgisel, of whom 
and the rest, who may occur."* 

* Of the antiquity of the church of Glastonbury, p. 306. 
These names are, clearly, those of Saxons interred in this ce- 
metery, and, of course, cannot be very ancient and, at any 
rate, they do not concern king Arthur : further than if it can 
be proved, that his bones were found between these two pyra- 
mids. Beorwald : is 13eort\vald, archbishop of Canterbury, 
who died 731 (Saxon chronicle) ; Bern: Beorn, general, burned 
in Silton, 780, or Beorn, earl, killed by Swain and buried at 
Winchester, 1046. (lb.) Eaiifed : Eanfled, daughter of king 
Edwin, horn 6'26. ("'.) Hedde bishop : Hedde, bishop of 
Wiuchesler, died 70S. (lb.) 



KING ARTHUR. 139 

" There is," says Leland, "in the archives of 
Cambridge the table of a charter formerly be- 
stowed by Arthur in favour of the students."* 
This charter is inserted at length, in John Cays 
first book " Of the antiquity of the university of 
Cambridge :" printed at London, 1568, by Henry 
Bynneman, 8vo. p. 68, 69, and republished by 
Hearne, along with ** Thomas Cays Assertion of 
the antiquity of the university of Oxford,'* (Ox- 
ford, 1730, p. 48). It begins thus: "Arthur, 
being supported, by god, in the regal dignity, to 
all his [lieges] greeting,'' and thus ends : 
" Given in the year from the incarnation of the 
lord 531, the seventh day of April, in the city of 
London : " So that it would seem that the doc- 
tors and students of the university of Cambridge 
were no less dexterous in diplomatick forgery 
than the abbot and monks of the convent of 
Glastonbury. 

* Collectanea, V, 27. In the library at Naward-castle, 
near Brampton, in Cumberland, belonging to the earl of Car- 
lisle, is still preserved, standing on the floor, a huge volume 
of three vellum leaves, being the original legend of Joseph of 
Arimafhea, which Leland beheld with admiration, on his visit 
to Glastonburv-abbey. 



APPENDIX. 



143 



APPENDIX. 



No. I. 

Extracts from the lives of Welsh saints. 

A Cotton-manuscript, in the British -museum, 
described by the title of Vespasian, A. XIV, con- 
tains (amongst other things) the lives of four- 
teen Welsh saints, archbishops, bishops, abbots, 
and confessors (to wit) 1st, The life of saint 
Gundlei, king and confessor : 2d, The life of 
saint Cadoc, bishop and martyr : 3d, The life of 
saint Iltut, abbot : 4th, The life of saint Teliau, 
archbishop of Llandaf, 512 : 5th, The life of 
saint Dubricius, archbishop of the same see, died 
512 (being succeeded by Teliau) :f 6th, The life 
of saint David, archbishop of Mynynw {Menevia, 
afterward, from himself, Saint-Davids), who died 
in 546, written by Ricemarch, bishop of Saint- 
Davids, who died in 1096 :% 7th, The life of 

t Another life of saint Dubricius, 7. 

X Another life of saint David, by Girald Barry, bishop of 
Saint-Davids, who sajs " it was reported saint David to have 
been the uncle of king Arthur." (Anglia Sacra, II, 628.) 



144 APPENDIX. 

saint Bernac, confessor : 8th, The life of saint 
Patern, bishop : 9th, The life of saint Clitauc, 
king and martyr : 10th, The life of saint Keby, 
bishop :§ 11th, The life of saint Tathei, con- 
fessor : 12th, The life of saint Carantoc, con- 
fessor : 13th, The life of saint Aidui, bishop : 
14th, The life of saint Brendan, abbot, (which 
wants the last leaf). The 1st, 2d, and 8th 
lives, make mention of king Arthur, containing, 
frequently, an anecdote, a tale or a miracle, 
whence it is inferred that they have been writ- 
ten after the publication of Geoffrey of Mon- 
mouths "History of the kings of Britain," 
in 1139 and [are] consequently, a series of 
fables, and forgeries : although the manuscript 
which contains these lives is, apparently, of the 
thirteenth century. The first instance, in the 
life of saint Gundlei, is related as follows : 
" King Gundlei, being now established in his 
kingdom, greatly, desired, with a flagrant affec- 
tion, that there should be united to him, in law- 
ful marriage, a certain damsel sprung from a 
most noble lineage, of elegant beauty, indeed 
and, likewise, in form, highly, decorous and 
clothed with golden vests, whose name was 
Gladusa, the daughter of a certain kinglet, called 
Brachan, on account of her most odoriferous 

* Another life of saint Kcbv, 1 1. 



APPENDIX. 145 

fame. He, from that time sent a great many 
messengers to the father of the virgin, who were, 
very earnestly, to require, that she might be 
betrothed to him as his wife. But the father of 
the damsel, the message being received, indig- 
nant and replete with fury, refused to betrothe 
his daughter to him, and despised the messen- 
gers and dismissed them without honour. They, 
bearing this hardly and, informing their lord 
what had been done toward them, returned : 
which being heard, the king, raging, with too 
much fury, armed, as soon as possible, three 
hundred servants, in order that they might 
carry off the premised damsel by force. Then 
straightway, taking the journey, that he might 
come to the court of the prescribed king, 
called Talgard, they found the beforementioned 
virgin, sitting at the door of her chamber with 
her sisters and listening to chaste discourse, 
whom, incontinently, taking by force, they re- 
turned with a speedy course : which [ill-tidings] 
being received, her father Brachan, in grief of 
heart, touched, inwardly, at the loss of his most 
dear daughter, with tears, called to his assistance 
all his friends and companions, to bring her 
back. All his auxiliaries summoned being now 
assembled, with swift courses, he pursues the 
enemy and his accomplices ; whom, when Gundlei 



146 APPENDIX. 

had beheld, he ordered, repeatedly, the said 
daughter to be brought and caused her to ride 
with him. He, however, without flying, but 
step by step, carrying with him the young 
woman on a horse, preceded the army, expect- 
ing his knights, and manfully exhorting them to 
battle. But Brachan, with his forces, boldly, 
attacking the hostile king and, likewise, his at- 
tendants, two hundred being overthrown, pur- 
sued them to a hill, in the confines, as it were, of 
each country, which, in the British tongue is 
called Bochr'uicarn, which is interpreted a stony 
way. But, when Gundlei, sound in body, with 
the before-noticed virgin, although lamenting 
the very great slaughter in fighting with his ad- 
versaries, had reached the bounds of his terri- 
tory, behold ! three most brave heros, Arthur, 
with his two knights,* Kay, that is, and Bedver, 
sitting upon the top of the aforesaid hill, playing 
at dice. They, forsooth, discerning the king, 
with the damsel, approaching them, Arthur, 
therefore, too much inflamed with unlawful de- 
sire toward the love of the young woman, and full 
of iniquitous thought, said to his companions. 
Know, that I am, vehemently, inflamed to the 
earnest desire of this damsel, whom the knight 

* There were no knights in Arthurs time nor (as has been 
before observed) for many centuries after him. 



APPENDIX. 147 

carries on horseback : but they, prohibiting him, 
said, Far from thee be it to commit so great a 
crime : for we are used to help the needy and 
the troubled, who, hard by this straight, run- 
ning together from the battle, shall come up the 
sooner : but, he replied, For-as-much-as, you 
rather wish to succour him than, violently, to 
take away from him the damsel for me, go meet 
them and, diligently, enquire which of them is 
the heir of this country. They, forthwith, de- 
parting and enquiring, according to the kings 
precept, Gundlei answers, Witness god and all 
the most learned of the Britons ! that I profess 
myself to be the heir of this land. The messen- 
gers being returned to their lord and having re- 
lated to him what they had heard from him, 
Arthur and his associates, being armed, rushed 
upon the enemies of Gundlei and, their backs 
being turned, put them to flight, with great con- 
fusion, to their own country. Then Gundlei, 
triumphing by the support of Arthur, proceeded 
with the prescribed virgin, Gladusa, to his pa- 
lace. Therefore, these things being transacted, 
king Gundlei allied to himself, in lawful mar- 
riage, the prescribed daughter of Brachan, by 
name Gladusa." (Folio 17, b.) The second in- 
stance, in the life of saint Cadoc, is related thus : 
" In the same time a certain leader of the Britons, 



148 APPENDIX. 

most brave, by nameLiges-Sauc, son of Eliman, 
by surname, also, Lau-hiir, alike, Long-hand, 
killed three knights of Arthur, the most illus- 
trious king of Britain. As to the rest, Arthur 
pursuing him on every side, he nowhere found a 
safe place and no one durst defend him for fear 
of the aforesaid king, until, at length, fatigued 
by very frequent flight, he came, a fugitive, to 
the man of god : who, having compassion of 
his sufferings confiding in the lord, very gra- 
ciously, received him. Nothing, truly, fearing 
Arthur, he remained, therefore, with him, in the 
region Gunliauc, safe for seven years, Arthur 
being ignorant : which being rolled away, the 
same, again, betrayed to the aforesaid king, at 
last, for the sake of pleading that Avhich by force 
with the man of god, he would, in no -wise, dare 
to contend, he came Avith a very great force of 
knights to the river Osk. Messengers, therefore, 
being directed to the king, the man of god en- 
quired from him if he would appoint the contro- 
versy 'to' the arbitrament of sage judges. But 
he acquiesced. For saint Cadoc, out of three 
several parts of that same country, David, to Avit, 
Teliau, Iltut and Dochou, being sent for, with 
many other clerks and the elder judges of all 
Britain being gathered together, as far as to the 
bank of the very great river Osk, he, himself, 



APPENDIX. 149 

preceding, in like manner, met. There, also, in 
the manner of enemies, from each part of the 
river, discussing the cause, with bitter words, 
they litigated, a very long time, on both sides. 
After this respite of altercation, however, the 
more learned men of the judges decreed Arthur, 
for the ransom to every one of the men killed, 
ought to receive three best oxen. Others, truly, 
enacted a hundred cows to be granted to him for 
the price of the prescribed men : for in ancient 
times, among the Britons, this kind of judge- 
ment and that price were established by the mi- 
nisters of kings and dukes. This being accepted, 
Arthur, insulting, refused the cows of one co- 
lour, but it contented him to receive those disco- 
loured (to wit) in the fore part of a red, in the 
hinder part, truly, of a white colour, distinct, 
with very much backwardness of gestures. 
Those, for-as-much-as, because they should have 
found cattle of this kind of colour, being alto- 
gether, ignorant, hesitated what counsel they 
should take upon these things. Wherefore the 
man of god, in the name of the three persons, 
commanded the young men of the council, so far 
forth as nine or, like as, some confess, a hundred, 
heifers, to drive to himself, of whatsoever colour 
they should be. That, however, the before-noted 
beasts were brought before the eyes of himself 
O 



150 APPENDIX. 

and of the other servants of god. By the divine 
work, for the depraved desire of Arthur, in the 
before-essayed colours, for the benevolent prayer 
and wish of the just, they were, straightway, 
changed [into different colours]. The train of 
the whole clergy, however, and many others the 
faithful of god assembled together by that blessed 
man, beholding this miracle, rejoiced with great 
joy, very much glorifying god. Moreover, the 
man of the lord consulted, how far, by right, the 
before-rehearsed oxen [he] ought to drive and, on 
each side, the company of the judges answered : 
Right, truly, those collected together, ' thou' 
[oughtest] to drive to the middle of the ford. 
He, therefore, drove them as far as that place, 
and Arthur, Chei and Bedguur ran to them, the 
rest sitting on the shore. But Chei and Bedguur, 
desiring, earnestly, drew them, with the hands, to 
the other shore, by the horns, but, immediately, 
between their hands, all seeing, by the divine 
will, they were transformed into bundles of fern t 
which prodigy Arthur beholding, that to himself 
the injury was discharged, for the reason it had 
been set upon him." 

The next instance is the visitation of saint 
lltnt to the court of king Arthur: " Hearing a 
magnificent knight of king Arthur, his cousin- 
merman, his magnificence, he desired to riail 



APPENDIX. 151 

the court of so great a conqueror, he deserted 
that which we call the further Britain and came, 
sailing, where he saw the greatest abundance of 
knights. There, likewise, being received with 
honour, and enriched to military desire. His 
desire, however, of taking gifts being fulfilled, 
he departed, most grateful, from the royal 
court." (Fo. 43.) The next instance appears in 
the life of saint Patern, which is thus related : 
"AVhen Patern, after many labours, rested in 
the church of Mauritania* a certain tyrant 
walked up and down these regions, on all sides, 
by name Arthur j who, on a certain day, coming 
to the cell of the holy bishop, and speaking to 
him, beheld his tunick (which, woven with gold, 
he had been enriched with, at his ordination, by 
the patriarch of Jerusalem) and, stabbed by the 
zeal of envy, requested it : to whom the saint 
said, This tunick is not deserved by any great 
man, whomsoever, but, only, by a clerk conse- 
crated to god. He, however, being displeased,went 
out of the monastery and, again, indignantly, re- 
turned, as if to take it away by force against the 
counsels of his earls. Now, one of the disciples, 
seeing him coming back in -a fury, ran to saint 
Patern and said, The tyrant, who, hence, before 

* A corruption of" Llan-Padern-vaur" or the great church 
of [bishop] Padern, in Cardiganshire. 



152 APPENDIX. 

went out, is returned with insulting fury. Patern 
said, Nay, rather, let the earth swallow him up ! 
which being said, immediately, the earth opened 
its mouth and swallowed Arthur up to the chin : 
who, therefore, acknowledging his guilt, began 
to praise god and saint Patern j until, humbly, 
entreating pardon, the earth sent him forth up- 
ward. Then the saint to the king (imploring 
his pardon with bended knees) granted a kind 
look.'' This miracle, likewise, occurs in the life 
of saint Patern, inserted" in the Acta Sanctorum, 
Aprilis, II, 378. He died about 560. (Folio 7% 
b.) 

The last instance is that in the life of saint 
Carantoc, which, by the compilers of the Acta 
Sajictorum (Maii, III, 585), is "suspected of 
much falsehood:" "In these times Cato and 
Arthur reigned in this country, inhabiting in 
Dindraithou and Arthur going about, that he 
might find a most powerful, huge [and] terrible 
serpent, which had wasted twelve parts of a field 
(to wit) Carrum and Carantoc came and saluted 
Arthur, Avho, rejoicing, received a blessing front 
him, and Carantoc asked Arthur whether he had 
heard where his altar had anivod, and Arthur 
answered : If I shall have a price, 1 will tell 
thee ; and he said : What price dost thou require ? 
He answered : That thou leadesl the serpent 



APPENDIX. 153 

which is near to thee,, that we may see if thou 
beest the servant of god. Then the blessed Ca- 
rantoc went and prayed to god, and, forthwith, 
came the serpent, with a great noise, as if it were 
a calf running to her mother, and bowed its head 
before the servant of god : as if it were an 
obedient to his lord, with a humble heart and 
meek eyes, and put his stole about its neck and 
led it as if it were a lamb, nor raised its quills or 
claws,* and its neck was as if it were the neck of 
a bull of seven years : that the stole could, 
scarcely, go round it. Afterward, they went to- 
gether and saluted Cato and were well received 
by him, and he led the serpent into the middle of 
the hall and fed it before the people, and they en- 
deavoured to kill it. He left him not to be 
killed, because he said it had come from the 
word of god : that it should destroy all the sin- 
ners which were in Car rum, and that he would 
show the virtue of god by it, and, afterward, 
went out at the gate of the tower and Carantoc 
loosed it and commanded it, that, departing, it 
should hurt no man nor return any more, and it 
went and continued as the ordinance of god 
beforesaid and took the altar, which Arthur had 

• These, it is to be presumed, are the peculiar properties of 
a Welsh serpent, composed of a porcupine and an owl : quills 
and claws. 



154 APPENDIX. 

intended to make into a table, but whatsoever 
was put upon it was thrown at a distance and 
the king requested from him that he might re- 
ceive Carrum, by a public instrument, for ever- 
lasting and, afterward, built a church there. 
Afterward, came a voice from heaven, that the 
altar should be thrown into the sea. Next after 
that Cato sent Arthur that he should ask about 
the altar and it was told to them, that it had 
been driven into the mouth of the Guellit, and 
the king said : In like manner, give to him the 
twelve parts of the field, where the altar was 
found." (P. 90.) 



APPENDIX 155 



No. II. 

The Answer of [Dionothus] the Abbot of Bangor, 
to Augustino the monk, requiring subjection to 
the Roman church, about the year 603 ; in Welsh, 
and English ; (word for word) : out of Spelman's 
Concilia.* 

Bid yspys a diogel i chwi, yn bod ni holl un ac arall 
yn uvydd ac ynn ostyngedyg i Eglwys Duw ac ir 
paab o Ruvain, ac i bool kyur grissdion dwyvol, i 
garu pawb yn i radd mewn kariad perffaith, ac i helpio 
pawb, o honaunt a gair a gweithred i vod ynn blant 
i dduw : ac amgenach uvydddod no hwn nid adwen 
i vod ir neb ir yddych chwi yn henwi yn baab ne yn 
daad o daade yw gleimio ac yw ovunn. Ar uvydddod 
hwn ir yddym ni yn barod yw roddi ac yw dalu iddo 
ef, ac i pop krisdion yn dragwyddol. Hevyd in ydym 
in dan ly wodraeth esgob Kaerllion ar Wysc yr hwn 
ysydd yn olygwr clan dduw arnobm ni y wneuthud i 
ni gadwyr ffordd ys brydol. 

Be it known and certain to you, that we are all 
and singular obedient and subject to the church of 
god and to the pope of Rome, and to every pious 

* This is, in all probability, the oldest and best authenti- 
cated specimen of the British or Welsh language now extant. 
Sir Henry had it from an old MS. of Peter Mostin, a Welsh 
gentleman, copied, no doubt, from one still older. 



156 APPENDIX. 

christian, to love every one in his degree with perfect 
charity, and to help every one of those, and by word 
and deed, to be the sons of god : and other obedience 
than this I know not due to him whom you name the 
pope, or the father of fathers to challenge and to 
require. But this obedience we are ready to give and 
pay to him, and to every christian for ever. More- 
over we are under the government of the bishop of 
Caerleon upon Usk, who is superintendent under 
god over us to make us keep the spiritual way. 



APPENDIX. 157 

No. III. 

British and Welsh Saints. 

Aaron and Julius, martyrs ; 1st of July, about 304. 

Aidui. 

Alban, martyr. 

Almedha, virgin and martyr ; 1st August, in the sixth 
century. 

Amphibalus, a nonentity ; being only a name given 
by Gildas to St. Albans cloak. 

Asaph, bishop ; 1st May, toward the beginning of the 
seventh century. 

Augul, bishop and martyr ; 7th of February. 

Barcian, confessor. 

Barruc, confessor, disciple of St. Cadoc ; 27th of Sep- 
tember. 

Benedict, abbot 

Bernach, confessor ; 9th of March. 

Brendan, abbot ; 17th of May. Irish. 

Cadoc or Sophias, bishop and martyr ; 24th of Ja- 
nuary, in the sixth century. 

Cadroe, abbot ; 6th of March, 988. 

Carantoc, confessor; 16th of January, in the sixth 
century. 

Cinvarch, the disciple of St. Dubricius. 

Clytauc, king and martyr ; 3d of November. 

Constantine, king, monk, and martyr ; 11 th of March. 

Cradoc, confessor ; 14th of April. 



158 APPENDIX. 

Crisant and Dario, martyrs ; 1st of December or Fe- 
bruary. 

Cuthman, confessor ; 8th of July. 

Daniel, bishop of Bangor ; died about 545. 

David, archbishop of Menevia ; 1st of March, 544. 

Decuman, confessor. 

Dochelm, confessor ; 8th of July. 

Dochow, priest and confessor ; 15th of February. 

Dubricius, archbishop and confessor; 14th of No- 
vember, 512. 

Elvan, bishop, and Meduin ; 1 st of January, about 198. 

Faustinian and Juventia, martyrs ; 16th of February. 

Gildas, the wise, abbot ; 29th of January, in the sixth 
century. 

Gistlian, bishop and confessor. 

Gundlei, confessor; 29th of March. 

Iltut. 

Ismael, bishop and confessor; 16th of June. 

Julius. See Aaron. 

Justinian, contemporary with Sts. Daniel and David. 

Keby, bishop and confessor ; 7th of November. 

Keyne, virgin; 8th of October, in the fifth or sixth 
century. 

Kieran, bishop and confessor. 

Kigwe, virgin; 8th of February. 

Kyned, contemporary with Sts. David, Theliau, Pa- 
tern, &c* 

* This saint was the son of Dihoc, prince of Little Britain 
by his own daughter ; and was born in a province, by name 
Goyr, about a mile from the palace of king Arthur. See 
Usher, 275. 



APPENDIX. 159 

Luidger, bishop and confessor ; 26th of March. 

Maidoc, bishop and confessor. 

Ninian, bishop and confessor ,- 16th of September. 

Nonnita, mother of St. David. 

Oudoceus, bishop of Landaf; 11th of July, 563. 

Patern, bishop and confessor; 15th of April, about 

560. 
Patrick, bishop and confessor; 17th of March. Irish. 
Tavanauc, confessor ; 25th of November. 
Teliau, or Theliau, bishop ; 9th of February, 544. 
Teuderi, confessor ; 29th of October. 
Tisoi {Monasticon Anglicanuni), III., 202. 
Winifred, virgin and martyr 



160 APPENDIX. 

No. IV. 

Welsh Saints. 

These names are extracted from the " Achey yr 
Santy," a MS. in the Harleian library, number 4181, 
containing the pedigrees of several British saints, 
(taken out of an old Welsh MS. written upon vellum, 
about 1250), then late in the custody of Edward 
Lhuyd of the Ashmolean museum. Those within 
crotchets are from " The pedigrees of severall 
British saints, taken out of an old Welsh manuscript 
of Mr. John Lewis of Lhuynweney, in Radnorshire, 
wrote about the time of Queen Elizabeth :" (also in 
Harl. MS. 4181.) 

[Arianwen.] 

Assa. 

Avan Buellt [Ascun Buelld ] 

Beuno. 

[Brychan.] 

Buan. 

Cannen. 

Carannauc 

Collen. 

[Deiniol.] 

Deinyoel. 

Deunauc. 

Dewi. 

Doevael. 



APPENDIX. 161 



[Dwynwen y raon.] 

[Dyfnawg.] 

[Eda elyn vawr.] 

Edern. 

[Eiluwy.] 

Einyaun Vrenhin. 

Elaeth Vrenhin. 

[Elerw.] 

Elhaern. 

[Elnog.] 

Emgen Merch Vaelgun Guyned. 

[Esdyn.] 

[Garmon.] 

[Gawr.] 

Gildas mab kadu [vab Kaw o Bridain.] 

[Glydav.] 

Gorust. 

Guenan. 

Gurhel. 

[Gurnerth.] 

Guydvarch. 

Guynlleu. 

[Gwaurdhydh verch Vrychan.] 

[Gwen verch Vrychan.] 

[Gwenvrewi.] 

[Gwrie.] 

HenwyD. 

[Henwau.] 

[Idavv.] 

Idloes. 

[Jestin ap Geraint ap Erbyn.] 



162 APPENDIX. 

KadeU. 

[Kattuc] 

Katvan sant yn Henlli. 

Katvarth sant yn Aberych. 

Katwalaudvr Vendigeit. 

[Kededr.] " 

f Kederig verch Vrychan.] 

Keiday. 

[Keidraw.] 

[Kenedlon.] 

Kowy. 

[Krisdoffis.] 

Kybi. 

[Kwywen vab ' Kaffi of Llyn.'] 

[Kynant.] 

Kyngar. 

[Kynvran.] 

Kynvelyn. 

[Lhydhelyn or Tralhvng.] 

Llendat. 

Llenyan Llauyur. 

[Lleydhad ag Eithras.] 

Llywelyn or Trallyng. 

Madrun. 

IMaelrys. 

Melangell. 

[Melyd Esgob Lhyndain.] 

Merchyll. 

Nidam. 

[Noydaw or Predyr gwynog meibion Gildas ap Kaw o 

Brydain.] 
[Oswalt.] 



APPENDIX, 163 



Ovyhael. 

Padarn. 

Patric. 

[Pawl vab Pawlpolins.] 

[Peblig.] 

Pedrauc. 

[PeoVg.] 

Pedyr. 

Peris sant kardinal o Revein 

Podo a Guynnin. 

[Rydegawg.] 

[Saeran.] 

[Sant Fred verch duthach Wyddel.] 

[Silwen verch Geraint vab Erbyn.] 

[Sliav, or Eliaw Keimad.] 

[Tadwystl.] 

[Tair GweUy.] 

[Tair Gwragedh.] 

Tecvan. 

Tedetho. 

Tegei. 

Teilyau. 

Trunyav. 

Tussiliau map Brochmael. 

Tutclut a Gvennoedyl. 

[Tydew verch Vrychan.] 

[TydwaU.] 

[Tydwen.] 

[Tyfrydavvg.] 

Tyssul. 

Tyvredauc. 

Ystyphan. 



164 APPENDIX. 

No. V. 
Cornish Saints. 

Advene, Advent, Athawyn, or Adwen ; one of the 
twenty-four children of Brochan, prince of Wales, 
all of whom were saints, martyrs, or confessors, 
in Devonshire and Cornwall, leading the life of a 
hermit. (See Lelands Collectanea, III. 153; 
and Camden.) 

Allan or Allen. 

Alwys. 

Austell, hermit, (Lelands Collectanea) ; Trinity sunday, 
Q. 31st of May. 

Beryan. 

Blazey (Blasius) ; two bishops and a martyr; all 
three on the 3d of February. {Acta SS.) 

Breage or Breock, a native of Ireland, bishop of Ar- 
morica, obliged to fly to Guernsey, for his oppo- 
sition to Arianism, and died there : others say 
that he outlived the persecution, returned to his 
bishoprick, and there died, in 556, S. Breacca : 
See Lelands Itinerary, III. 15. 

Brewer, William, son of sir William Brewer, knight, 
bishop of Exeter, 1223-44. This, at the same 
time, is a singular instauce of a saint by a surname. 

Bruard or Buard. 

Budoc or Budokc, an Irishman. See Lelands Itine- 
rary, III. 25. 

Burien. 



APPENDIX 165 

Carac, Carock or Carrock. 

Carantoc or Karantoc, son of Keretic, king of Britain. 
See Lelands Itinerary, III. 195. 

Cleer, {Clara, v'xrgo, or Clarus, presbyter and martyr.) 

Cleather, Clether or Cleder, one of the twenty-four 
children of Brochan. 

Columb, virgin and martyr; 16th of March. (See 
Camdeni Epistolce, p. 91. 

Constantine, king, monk, and martyr ; 1 1 th of March, 
556. (Domesday-book.) 

Credan. See Lelands Collectanea, I. 10. 

Creed. 

Cullan. 

Dachuna, a man in Botraeme (Bodmin). See Le- 
lands Collectanea, I. 10. 

Daye, Dey, or Dye, of Gaul. 

Diep. 

Dilic, one of the twenty-four children of Brochan. 

Dominick. 

Earney. 

Earth, Erth or Erne. 

Endelion, Endelyan or Endelient, one of the twenty- 
four children of Brochan. (See Lelands Col- 
lectanea, III. 153) ; of Menevia or Saint Davids, 
563. 

Enedor. 

Erme or Ermets, (Norden, Hermes,) confessor; 28th 

of August. 
Ernan or Ervan, (Q. Hemon, bishop of St. Davids ?) 
Erne, (Norden.) 

Erth. See Lelands Itinerary, III. 20. 
P 



166 APPENDIX. 

Eual, Eval, Uval or Vuel (Norden). 

Ewe, Eva, or Tew, (Iwy, John of Tinmouth). 

Ewste or Just, bishop and martyr. 

Gennis, (Genesius) ; 25th of August. 

Germain, bishop and confessor. 

Germoc or Germoke. See Lelands Itinerary, III. 

16. 
Germore. 
Geron. 

Gillet. See Juliet. 

Ginoc or Ginoke, (Lelands Itinerary, III. 36.) 
Gluvias. 
Gomonda. 
Goran or Gurran ; lived solitarily, in a vale, in a small 

cottage ; which, leaving, he delivered up to saint 

Petroc. (Monasticon Anglicanum, I. 213.) 
Grade, (Norden). 
Guendern, Wendern or Wendron. 
Guenor, (Lelands Collectanea, I 213.) 
Guerrir, (Domesday-book.) 
Guinow. See Winnow. 
Gulwal. 

Gwenap or Wenap. 

Helie, one of the twenty-four children of Brochao 
Hydrock. 
Illogan. 
[ssey, Issoye, or Yse, one of the twenty-four children 

of Brochan. 
Ive, Ithcor Ies, (Lelands Itinerary, III. 21.) 
Jona, one of the twenty-four children of Brochao 

J IIC. 



APPENDIX. 167 

Julian, one of the same children. 

Juliet. See Gillet. 

Just. See Ewste. 

Kananc, one of the twenty-four children of Brochan. 

Keby, Cuby or Key, son of Solomon, king, duke, or 
earl of Cornwall, about 350. 

Kenven. 

Kenwel, (Norden.) 

Kerender, one of the twenty-four children of Brochan. 

Keri, one of the same children. 

Kevern, {Keiven or Coemgen, an Irish saint.) 

Keyne, virgin, a Welsh saint. 

Kew, (Norden.) 

Kilberd or Kibberd, (Norden.) 

Levan, (saint Livin), an Irish bishop, martyred in 656. 

Maben or Mabyn, one of the twenty-four sons of 
Brochan. 

Macra. 

Madern. 

Marnarch. 

Marvenne. 

Maw or Mawe. At Saint Mawes, in Lelands time, 
was " a chapelle of hym, and his chaire of stone, 
and his welle." {Itinerary, III. 30.) 

Maudit or Mawes. (See Lelands Itinerary, III. 
29.) 

Mawnan, Mawnon or Mawnoun. (See ibi, 24.) 

Medan. (See Lelands Collectanea, I. 10.) 

Meline, Mellion or Mullian. 

Melor, son of Melian, king of Cornwall. See Le- 
lands Itinerary, III. 194. 



168 APPENDIX. 

Menfre, one of the twenty-four children of Brochan. 
Meren, Menyn or Merewen, another of the same 

children. 
Merther, (Norden.) 
Metherion. 

Meva and Gissey, or Issey. (Norden.) 
Mewan, abbot of Ghe, in Britany. 
Mewbred. 
Minver. 
Mogun. 
Moran, Moren or Morwen, one of the twenty-four 

children of Brochan. 
Nectan or Nighton, another of the same children. 
Nedye. 
Neoth or Niot, of Hunstock, buried at Hartland 

His monastery is mentioned in Domesday-book. 
Newlin. (See Lelands Collectanea, I. 116.) 
Nunn. 
Olave. 

Patera, a Welsh saint, of the sixth century. 
Penan, {Reran or Kiaran, an Irish saint. See Usher, 

413.) 
Petherwick, Petherick or Petroc, abbot ; 4th of June, 

in the sixth century. (See Monastkon Anglkamtm, 

I. 213, co. 1.) He had a monastery in Cornwall, 

which was ruined by the Danes. See Roger of 

Howden, 427.)* 

* '' In this same year [1177] Martin, a canon regular of the 
church of Bodmin, carried oft" by stealth, the body of saint 
Petroc, and, flying with him, brought him into Britany, to the 



APPENDIX. 169 

Petherwyn. 

Pratt. 

Pynneck. 

Roch, a native of Languedoc, died the 16th of August, 
1327. 

Rumon. 

Sampson, archbishop of Caerleon. 

Stedians. 

Tallan (Q. Allan). 

Tamalanc, one of the twenty-four children of Brochan. 

Teath, (Tatheus, confessor.) 

Tedda, one of the twenty-four children of Brochan. 

Tissey (Q. Issey). 

Tudy (Deus-dedit, or A-deo-datus, archbishop of Can- 
terbury, 654. Q. 

abbey of Saint Meven : which being found out, Roger, prior 
of the Church of Bodmin, with the sounder part of his chapter, 
went to the King of England the father, [Henry II. that is, 
his eldest son, being, at the same time, Henry III.] and 
effected so much toward the king, that commanding, he sent to 
the abbot and convent of saint Neven, that without delay they 
should render the blessed Petroc to Roger, prior of Bodmin, 
and, unless they did, the king commanded Rowland of Dinant, 
justiciary of Britany, that he should take up that holy body 
by force, and deliver it to the aforesaid prior of Bodmin : 
which being heard, the abbot and convent of saint Meven, 
taking care before-hand to the indemnity of their church, and 
not daring to resist the kings will, rendered that body, with- 
out any diminution, to Roger, prior of Bodmin, swearing upon 
the holy gospels, and upon the relicks of the saints, that the 
very same body, and not another, with all integrity, they 
rendered." (Idem. 567.) 



170 APPENDIX. 

Tue. (Norden.) 

Veep or Wymp, one of the twenty-four children of 
Brochan. 

Verion, Verryan or Virion. 

Wencu, one of the twenty-four children of Brochan. 

Wenher, one of the same children. 

Wenn, another of them. 

Wensent, another. 

Winnow, (Guenau, a Breton saint); 31st of Novem- 
ber. 

* # * All these names are, or a couple of centuries ago, were 
preserved in those of parishes, chapelries, towns, villages, ham- 
'ets or single houses ; the anniversary of each saint being 
known upon the spot. It would seem, however, that many 
such places, which bore the appellation or prefixtureof saint, in 
Nordens time, have now lost it. 



APPENDIX. in 

No. VI. 

Breton Saints. 

Aaron, monk ; 22d of June, in the sixth century. 
Armagil, confessor; 16th of August, 553. 
Brioc, bishop ; 1st of May, in the fith or sixth cen- 
tury. 
Eoharn, hermit and martyr; 11th of February, about 

1020. 
Genevd, bishop of Dol ; 29th of July, 639. 
Gildas, abbot ; 29th of January, 570. 
Gohard, bishop and martyr ; 25th of June, 843. 
Guenau ; 3d of November. 
Guinole\ See Winwaloe. 
Gurloes, abbot ; 25th of August, 1057. 
Gurval, bishop of Alethen ; 6th of June, in the seventh 

century. 
Joava or Jovin, of Leone* ; 2d of March, in the sixth 

century. 
Leonorius, bishop ; 1st of July, in the sixth century. 
Mein, 21st of June. 
Meriadoc, bishop of Veneti ; 7th of June, in the 

seventh century. 
Ninnoc, virgin ; 4th of June, in the eighth century. 
Patern, bishop ; 15th of April, about 560. 
Rioc, monk of Landevenec ; 12th of February, in 

the fifth century. 
Ronan, bishop and hermit; 1st of June, in the sixth 

century. 
Samson, bishop of Dol ; 28th of July, about 565. 



172 APPENDIX. 

Solomon, king and martyr ; 25th of June, 874. 
Tudwal, Tugdual or Tugwal, bishop of Trecore" ; 30th 

of November. 
Tuian, abbot ; 1st of February. 
Turian or Turiav, bishop of Dol ; 13th of July in the 

eighth century. 
William, bishop of Brioc ; 29th of July, 1237. 
Winwaloe, abbot of Landevenec ; 3d of March, in the 

sixth century. 



London : Printed by YV. Nicol, 
Cleveland Row, St. James's. 






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